


Gradient

by Neonbat



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angel Wings, Blood and Gore, Bottom Steve, Frotting, Guardian Angel AU, Guardian Angel Steve, M/M, Non-Serum Steve Rogers/Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes | Shrinkyclinks, Shrinkyclinks Fest 2020, Soul Bond, Temporary Character Death, The usual amounts of sad that goes with the Winter Soldier, Torture, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, angel mythology mashup, handjobs, kind of a wing fic, mash up of religious doctrine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:48:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23627953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neonbat/pseuds/Neonbat
Summary: Steve watched his charge, wishing he could do something more than whisper and pray. There came a day when he could Watch no more when he had to reach out and touch James' soul and be heard.Steve would risk everything, even falling, if it meant saving the man he'd overseen since James drew his first breath. He would fall into darkness if it meant bringing James to the light.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 31
Kudos: 112
Collections: Shrinkyclinks Fest 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Woooo, good lord I had to write this fast. Unfortunately timed surgery really kicked my butt! I loved the prompt so I had to make it bigger than just a few thousand words :)
> 
> Thanks to my beta @Johniarty here on ao3 :)

There was an order to things. Checks, balances, those that deserved and those who did not. Human beings had been tried and weighed yet still continued on in the Divine’s favor. They were after all, in Their image.

Or that’s how the story went. Admittedly, He’d never heard the words of the Divine, nor had anyone else in a long, long time. 

Oppressive darkness crushed them. The staccato breaths of his charge blended with the low rattling of his trembling body against the metal gurney in the cramped, damp room the only sounds for the two hours. The table was blood-slicked, thick leather straps securing the human’s body, even the ruined, swollen mass of his mangled left arm.

James Buchanan Barnes. A human so very bright and vibrant. One that He had watched since the moment his body fully formed in his mother’s womb and Lailah touched upon his lips. The first time James opened his eyes, his first steps, the first day of school, and even his first kiss. He had been there for it all. 

And He’d watched James fall.

James’ screams still echoed through him. Falling. Falling. Falling. The impact hadn’t been kind. James had hit a rocky outcrop that had nearly severed his left arm and broke what was left of it. The human had laid crumpled in the blood-soaked snow, fading in and out so deeply He could reach out and gently caress the soul, so close to being held in his hands for James’ final breath.

Then They came. Took James to a world of darkness and pain. Left him to fester while they plotted with souls that stunk of sinister intent.

And despite all of this, He could do nothing. Nothing but lament for His charge and weep over a fate that was far too cruel for someone as pure-hearted as His James. He’d failed. Failed the first charge He’d ever been gifted because He was too weak. Lailah had erred when She extended Her bountiful hands and Chosen Him into Her fold. He wasn’t meant to protect. A nameless entity existing within the Choirs, lost and songless.

It had been so long since the Mother had sang to him, leaving Him floundering with this desperate soul cradled in his touch.

“Please...hold on,” He whispered, desperately floating close to His charge, His empyreal touch lost to the human bleeding before his eyeless gaze. He wanted to touch, to reach out and lay a spectral hand on James’ head and soothe the terror quickening his laboured heart. And yet, His touch did nothing, hovering impotently against the human’s broken body.

The doors to the cell opened, and James’ chest stuttered with fear.

* * *

  
  


Cold mist diffused across the lab’s floor as the tank’s door slid open with a hiss. He’d watched the process five times before, each one as horrific as the last. Black-gloved hands descended on James, jamming syringe after syringe into his exposed body, all tipped with thick needles designed to plunge through the ice of James’ skin.

He stood by, cooing quiet songs as James convulsed, shook, and seized his way back into the land of the living.

Was it horrible of Him to prefer it when James was in the suspended state? When his consciousness was at a standstill He could drift so close - James floated just on the other side of the veil. So tantalizingly close. 

Sometimes, He even thought James knew He was there, whispering soft words to tell him he wasn’t alone. Never alone. 

James screamed and punched a scientist hard enough her ribcage collapsed in on itself in a jumble of splintered bone. More hands and syringes descended until James fell, trembling on the floor as his captives closed in.

By now, He should be used to seeing the whites of James’ eyes, the hard, gut-wrenching terror screaming from his soul. Hearing James’ whole being cry out for someone to end it. Anyone to just  _ end _ it. 

He sat by while James was once again strapped to a metal gurney and his body taken from him.

He pretended to hold James’ hand when his mind came back to him and James screamed. It was all He could do, all He could  _ ever _ do.

Was this a punishment for a sin He wasn’t aware He committed? Was it wrong to feel self-pity when his charge suffered for being assigned to someone with no hope of helping? That His first gift of humanity would be to watch it suffer. How could humans do such things to one another? For all the goodness He’d seen in His charge, He’d seen far more malice in the ‘people’ surrounding Him. What if all of humanity was like this? Just...good people  _ suffering _ . 

Over time James screamed less. The fight in him died until his beautiful blue eyes reflected the same cold as the chamber he’s forced into time and time again. But He never strayed far. Even as the warm shine of James’ inner light dimmed, He curled protectively around it as if His weak wings could do anything to bolster it against the tide.

James drifted, and so did He. 


	2. Chapter 2

The harsh sun finally receded, dragging a pitch night in its wake. James skulked, bleeding through the shadows with all the grace of a panther on the hunt. It would be beautiful, if not for the outcome. It always ended in blood. In James’ soul flickering a little less brightly. 

He trailed after, futilely tugging at strands of fate to make Himself known. Once or twice He’d caused James to stutter, but like always, Hydra was quick to correct.

Within minutes James was in the house — mansion? The names humans have for various dwellings still confused him.

He followed.

The muted sound of conversation drew James to a back room on the upper most floor, a cracked door revealing an older man dressed in a fine suit milling about, a phone pressed to his ear. He never heard James enter - with his back turned towards the door, he never even suspected. As soon as the phone lowered, James struck, a knife sliding into the man’s upper spine. He hit the floor with a dull thud, and James straightened, wiping his blade off on his pants before sheathing it.

The door opened, and they turned in tandem, the knife once again in James’ hand. A little girl hovered near the door, her pale grey eyes hooded with sleep.”Daddy, I’m thirsty... “ She murmured, mouth barely able to form words without a childish lisp.

Witnesses were not allowed. Collateral damage was a given, and needed to be mitigated accordingly. 

He screamed the moment James took a step and the child let out a gasp.

“No!” He pushed everything he had into James. James sitting on the floor of his childhood home, laughing as his little siblings crawled all over him. James nursing his little sister through a horrible flu while his parents worked. James working long hours to try and bolster the family funds to get them through hard times. James giving a child his daily rations in some small village during the war. Anything and everything to remind James who he was and how he’d always cared for those who couldn’t yet care for themselves. 

The knife stopped millimeters away from the child’s chest, hovering over her pale pink and yellow pajamas, just over her heart. Their eyes met, wide grey with cold blue. The knife dropped and the child screamed, turned to tear down the hallway and yell for her mother.

Even as James heaved bile against the mask secured to his face, relief washed through Him. He never thought seeing James fall to his knees would fill Him with such elation. Drifting closer, He watched. James tore off his mask to purge the contents of his stomach onto the expensive rug. Nutrition slurry, never solids. Never anything that brought joy through taste and texture. 

“That’s it, James. Let it go,” He whispered, wings fluttering to bow around the broken human, even as exhaustion drooped them to the floor. He combed his spectral fingers ineffectively through James’ sweat-damp hair, wishing not for the first time to offer more than impotent words.

Influencing — it taxed him in ways he knew it didn’t for the Others. Angels that could whisper in their charges' ear, pushing Will to nudge their humans in the right direction as effortlessly as Singing. But neither had ever come easy for him. His voice didn’t reach and his Will faltered.

Perhaps that’s why James murmured fragmented mission parameters with bile on his tongue on the blood and vomit-slick floor of the crime scene. 

A clarion call erupted around them. To their left, metal grates slammed down on the inside of the windows, but they did little to perturb James, not with the gleaming metal arm that gripped onto the grating and pulled, tearing it free with a creaking snap. Glass rained down to pepper James as he burst through, unfeeling and unconcerned with the crisscrossing cuts that littered any bare flesh not fully covered by his tactical-suit. Sirens filled the night, but James was long gone by the time they arrived, and so was He.

* * *

Sun broke over the dewy stalks of struggling weeds outside the abandoned house James had broken into two days before. It was the closest thing to a beautiful morning the human had since the days his people had called him to arms. There was something to be said when broken windows and cold fingers counted as a blessed morning, but He was just glad James was free from the tank. 

For the first time in a long, long while, He sang. His wings fluttered as he sat in front of James, voice lifting to the heavens despite knowing it fell on deaf ears. It felt good anyway. His voice was not the loudest, clearest, or purest in the Host, yet he poured all he could into his exaltation despite it.

The fatigue of a handful of suns ago lingered, enough that not even his most fervent whispers fluttered James’ lids while he slipped. When he slept. James had maybe five hours of true sleep over the past three days. The human had gone longer with less, just another reason He sang until his voice cracked. 

Hours later He walked slow circles around a park bench, fondly watching James turn a dark fruit slowly in his hands, relishing the texture and the gentle give of the supple fruit against his fingers. James had lifted clothing from a laundromat, a sin He forgave instantly when He saw just how relieved James looked to shrug on a jacket two sizes too big. James hadn’t yet spoken a word, avoiding the rest of humanity and stealing what he needed to survive but it was still the most animated He’d seen his charge since the days before Zola.

The first bite broke a wave of awe over James’ face, and He smiled, kneeling in front of him to watch as James shoved large bites of fruit from the stolen bundle into his mouth. Juice dribbled down James’ chin, reminiscent of the days when his mother would try and fail to keep James still for lunch as a child. James had always ended up with a dirty shirt and a mother’s ire towards the laundry. 

Cautiously, He reached out, fingers hovering over James’ cheek as the human ate until only pits remained. They were moving today, never staying in one place for longer than two days. It didn’t feel quite so hopeless when James took time to bend and punch the pits into the loam with his metallic thumb.

Drifting next to James as he skulked through shadows, stole, and hid were joyous days compared to the Hell James had already endured. Even though he woke up screaming, stabbing at wraiths in the dark, or so afraid he vomited in his hovel, it all paled in comparison to Hydra’s dark hands.

On the fourteenth day, James spent the day humming broken pieces of the hymn He’d exalted the night before while his charge slept. And He wept.

On the twentieth day, James killed an officer investigating reports of screaming from an empty property, grasping the man’s neck until it snapped in his hands. He wept then too.

They found James on the thirty-fifth day.

“Узы,” The clipped word stopped James in his tracks in the middle of the street and James’ face went slack.

“Nononono!” He whimpered, trying and failing to grasp the shoulders of the woman that advanced on James, flanked by two other Hydra, smirks on their cruel lips.

“You’ve been bad, soldat. Making us chase you. Come.” James fell into step, mechanically walking in the middle of the grouped devils towards a van parked at the end of a trash-scattered alley. 

He screamed, gnashing his teeth and touching down in front of James to reach out and grasp the puttering flame within. Instead of passing through, his hand closed around a tiny sun, searing through his core to the very tips of his feathers. Blood splattered the brick under James’ punch, tearing through the leftmost agent with a feral roar.

” Желание.” Another man stepped from the van, hurriedly blurting words He hoped to never hear again.

“Семнадцать,” Four barbs from a black box found purchase in James’ neck, and he fell in a flurry of spasms and grunts.

”Ржавый.” James screamed, the plates in his metal arm screeching and shifting as more and more electricity poured in. 

“Рассвет”

“Печь”

James fell still, blood dribbling down his chin from his tongue, a macabre juxtaposition to the plum juice a fond eternity ago.

“Девять.”

“Добросердечный.”

No one had ever answered His call before. Not in the years He’d begged for His charge’s fate, but He prayed with everything in Him, boughed over James’ body, cradling his face in useless hands.

“Возвращение на родину.”

“Один.”

The agents stood around them, chuckling to themselves as the electricity died and still James laid prone on the ground, only the rapid rise-and-fall of his chest signaling his awareness.

“Товарный —”

The burning pain radiating from His hand grew, creeping up His arm higher and higher until it started to consume His entire body. It melded with His rage, His sorrow, His hate, churning with the divine fury crafted into His very being. 

It exploded outward in a radiant burst of light, pouring out everything within Him until there was nothing left but darkness.


	3. Chapter 3

_ There are many things the Soldier knows. _

_ He knows there are as many ways to kill a man as there are stars in the sky. Knows the clarity that comes with following orders. Knows not to question the rough hands that prepare him for his mission. He knows his Handler is Absolute. _

_ He knows he prefers a long-scope to a pistol, and a knife over blunt force. He knows the sound of a man choking on his own blood. Knows the stink and indignity of the dead. Knows that his mask never filters out all of the ugly in humanity.  _

_ He knows that he is no one. A tool. A weapon. A gun to be pointed and fired at Hydra’s will. _

_ He also knows there is something inside him that occasionally whispers so fervently his hands shake, and for a brief, terrifying moment nausea grips his stomach. It always passes, smoke lost in a gale. _

_ There are many more things the Asset doesn’t know. He doesn’t know his name if he ever had one. He doesn’t know if he was made by Hydra, blood, sinew, and bone. Doesn’t know why he still has the capacity to fear when they’ve purged him of all else, only that cold and bare concrete send tendrils of panic threading through his veins. _

_ He doesn’t know the year, though he thinks he once stayed awake long enough to know the taste of red lips and even redder hair. He doesn’t know her name, or remember a face, or if she ever existed at all. He doesn’t know if he even exists now. _

_ He doesn’t know what made his knife pause a fraction of an inch away from a child’s face and feel as if the world had rung with a clarity that had sent him to his knees. He doesn’t know why he runs, only that he must. _

_ There are many things the Soldier hates.  _

_ He hates the burn of bile in his throat and the way it stings his cracked lips. Hates the bite of dewy mornings in squats, hates more the stench of offal from transients that have sequestered themselves in the hide-aways before him.  _

_ He hates the bright chirping of birds that greet him every morning. Hates the ever present hunger gnawing mercilessly at his stomach no matter how much he steals. He hates the times when he must slink into society and risk being found, the wary looks the cattle eye him with like they know instinctively he is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. If he’d ever been a sheep. _

_ And above all he hates himself. _

_ And there are many things the Soldier learns. _

_ He learns the comfort of a stolen coat and knit cap. He learns he likes the barely-there scent of fabric softener after a few days on the wind, not as cloying to his sensitive nose. He learns that cotton doesn’t redden his skin like kevlar and buckled straps. _

_ He learns the taste of plums until he’s sick with it, swallowing down the sick that threatens after the last precious fruit is consumed because the soldier is not allowed these things and every bite must be worth it. He learns that candy bars sting his tongue with sweetness, and cheap processed food clench his gut up like he swallowed razor blades.  _

_ He learns to sleep with a gag to stifle the screams of nightmares plagued with bombs, exam tables, and seeing his insides scooped into bowls and set aside to reassemble later. _

_ He learns that the Knowing is worse than the Not. _

* * *

Товарный —

The shutters started closing, body going slack as the electricity cut off. There wasn’t any need to subdue him now, not when his limbs were a useless mass. Darkness prickled at the edge of his vision, unable to do more than glare as an agent stalked toward him, spitting words that locked him away in his own head. The loss of control wasn’t what made him piss down his leg like a kicked dog, it was the knowing that everything was about to end.

There wouldn’t be any coming back from this. The spattering of memories and sensations, the shards that made him think he was  _ someone _ would seize with the next syllable.

Light burst from nothingness, boring into his brain with the effectiveness of twin icepicks. Despite it, his eyes stayed wide, glimpsing a small figure spread-armed in the nucleus. Around him barely-uttered screams came to an abrupt stop and the sound of thick liquid hitting pavement gave birth to utter silence. The light crested, a bitten off yell bubbling in his chest as it burned brighter and brighter until he was forced to close his eyes or risk an injury even he couldn’t come back from. 

A few feet ahead of him a mass hit the ground, a body. The Soldier knew the sound of dead-weight hitting pavement. He smelled blood. More blood than he’d ever smelled at once in his limited recollections.

The Soldier twitched feeling back into his extremities. Toes. Legs. Hand. Arm. Bit by bit his body returned to him, spasming faintly from residual shock but functional. Blinking against the after image his vision returned as he sat up, righting himself into a sea of carnage so visceral it took him a moment to even realize what he was looking at. 

The Soldier didn’t balk at the sight of brutality, but he mused if he was a normal man this might be worthy of throwing up. A portion of an agent’s skull had fallen onto his jeans, blood, bone, and brain matter clinging to the denim while a mat of soaked hair occupied his knee. A few inches away from where he’d writhed under the stun-gun another mass of tissue and blood sprayed back against a once-blue dumpster. Everywhere he looked was stained dark and slick, globs of human remains stuck to rough brick or sitting in pools of blood. A grenade couldn’t do this. Nothing that the Soldier could think of was capable — 

His eyes paused on a pale mass crumpled in the clean axis surrounding the slaughter. Something drifted through the air to land in front of him in the blood. The Soldier’s brow furrowed. Feathers flecked the corona, growing denser the closer the trail came to the crumpled figure until finally, the origin hit him. 

It was a man lying on the ground, naked, thin, and no bigger than a teenager. Then, of course, there were the wings. Jutting from his scrawny back was a tangle of feathers held together by what the Asset could only assume to be a bird-like structure of bones sheathed in flesh.

_ Angel _ , his mind hissed unhelpfully. Foolishness. He had been Made, other human beings could be twisted and shaped as well.

Besides, nothing aside from the light or winged limbs denoted anything ‘divine’. The blood and feathers were data enough.

Reaching out, The Asset grasped a fallen feather — with his left hand, unwilling to risk his flesh. The feathers were in no terms beautiful. Mottled sprays of white feathers that had been splashed with dishwater grey, bare in patches, and brittle to even look at. It reminded him of a diseased pigeon, rather than anything holy. A mutant. That word the Soldier recognized distantly. 

His fingers grasped the feather and it crumbled to ash in his touch. The one on his leg dissolved, another handful to his left, a chain-reaction that had him jumping ungainly to his feet to back-pedal as one by one they fell into small piles of dusty grey. 

The man’s wings shuddered, a low groan pulling from his — its’? — throat. The dappled tangle of wings darkened, fingers of grime threading through, a brush-tip soaking thin ink from a well. 

Shouts from the end of the alley and retreating footsteps spurred the Soldier forward, scooping up the frail man(boy?) and spurring towards the abandoned Hydra van, leaving a trail of falling feathers and ash in his wake.


	4. Chapter 4

The mutant shifted on the bare mattress, lids fluttering as his frail body twitched into semi-wakefulness. The Soldier watched from the corner, back pressed against the wall, balancing on the balls of his feet. He’d watched the mutant sleep for the past four hours, growing increasingly restless the longer he waited. The longer he had to second guess himself.

Logic dictated he should have left the creature in the alley and ran. Whoever they were, they were dangerous, dangerous enough to dissolve a handful of Hydra agents into raspberry jelly. The comparison quirked a barely-there grin to his lips.

The creature gasped, and a knife jumped to The Soldier’s metal hand. Watching it rouse itself was like watching a lamed bird struggle in the dirt, clumsy, uncoordinated, and so obviously wrong it stirred a strange sourness in his stomach the Soldier had only so far associated with indigestion. 

Blue-green eyes blinked open, glassy but alert. As soon as they focussed, the mutant tensed, and the Soldier lowered the knife enough to make sure the mutant could see the glint in the dim light.

“Divine’s grace,” They whispered, a strange reaction to being threatened with a knife. A fragile smile spread across pale-pink lips only stuttering to a halt when they tried to move and cried out instead. 

“You have thirty seconds to say why I shouldn’t kill you.” It was the most words he had spoken since — since he didn’t know. The Soldier had no need to talk, only to take orders.

They stilled, eyes widening.”I...you can see me?” Pain-glazed eyes started to show with more than just the ache in their shoulders. To the Soldier’s surprise, and discomfort, the person began to cry. “Lailah’s kiss, you can. James — “ 

A lance stabbed him right through the temple, knocking him back against the wall.

_ ”James, I swear you are going to give me grey hair before my time, get back here you menace!” A woman’s voice, while exasperated, tapered into an airy laugh. The sensation of hands scooping him under his armpits hit him, the scent of lavender and Sunday breakfast. _

His eyes focussed, and the creature from the alley had crawled to him, trailing blood from his burned palm. Too close. How had they gotten so close?

Growling, the knife flashed, and a thin red line opened on their cheek. The Soldier’s chest stuttered.

Blinking, they raised their uninjured hand, pale and slender, to their cheek. It came away red, pulling their attention with the same awe the Soldier had given his first taste of chocolate. 

“Oh,” They paled, a shuddering breath rippling through their skinny body. Even more hesitant, they reached for their back, smearing blood against a bare, angry shoulder blade. “Oh no.” Two simple words were laced with more emotion than the Soldier had ever experienced since Waking.

“Who.are.you.” He growled, pushing into the being’s space, not that the fool seemed to register the danger they were in.

They focussed and the weight of their eyes turned the Soldier’s spine to stone.”I am yours,” They replied, the most simple thing in the world.”I am One that has watched Lailah bind you with her cleaving kiss. I am the One who watched you in your mother’s womb. The One who watched you grow. The One who watched you fall,” Tears streamed freely down their cheeks,”I am the One who failed you, James Buchan — “

He could close his hand around the being’s thin, fragile neck, lift them high off their feet until they dangled impotent in his grip. A whine drowned out all else, piercing his skull as thoroughly as the Name had the first time. He didn’t know when he’d gotten to his feet, or when the being’s face had enough time to start to redden with desperation in his grasp. When his thoughts had turned to reality.

Small hands wrapped around his wrist, holding him with all the strength within their feeble body, staining the Weapon with more blood.

“ _ Who are you? _ ” Roaring through the droning note, the Soldier squeezed. 

But they didn’t struggle, no matter how close he was to snapping their neck. They stared with eyes so burdened a weapon like himself had no hope to understand. It was too fathomless to comprehend, open, raw, and more terrifying than the dreams of cold and blood.

Instead, their hands slid as far up his arm as they could reach, squeezing. Warm, tender, and forgiving. 

They fell in a heap and it was he that backed away, only conscious of the tremble tearing its way through his body with some distance between them.

* * *

Pain was a new sensation. Everything was. To the rough bite of the dirty floor underneath him, the cold skittering across bare skin, or the haggard gasps wracking his lungs. Not to mention the nearly all-consuming throb of his burned palm, the very same that had grasped Bucky’s flame. Pain came with an awful clarity of mortality Steve didn’t know how to make sense of or bear. 

More importantly, James was backing away from him. 

“Pl — please,” He rasped, paralyzed with pain. James’ footsteps kept retreating, receding into the hall.

Slumping, Steve quietly cursed the Divine for being so cruel to grant him this mortal form if all he was good for was to frighten his charge. He’d done it,  _ finally _ protected James from the ones that hurt him, but even that felt grossly inadequate to the terror he’d seen in James’ eyes at the mere mention of his name.

A mug of tea appeared in front of his face. Steve looked at it cross-eyed, following the grip around the handle all the way up to James’ stony expression.

“Drink,” James commanded, and Steve accepted the mug, only to stare it down.

“I don’t know how,” He rasped, wincing once more as his throat rebelled. 

Above him, James smirked,”Are you saying you don’t know how to drink tea?” Even if James was being meanspirited about it, Steve savored the sound so close to the cadence of his younger years when Bucky would roll his eyes at kids younger than him on his street. 

“I’ve never had to before,” Steve raised the cup to his mouth and tipped the liquid into his mouth like he’d seen others do while on Watch. The tea scalded immediately, and he spat it back into the mug with a sharp gasp.

A small, albeit stunted chuckle, rumbled above him,” You’re either an idiot or,” James’ jaw tensed, the small burst of amusement drying up in an instance.”I’m going to ask you again, and you’re going to say it plainly. Who are you, and why did you know that name.” 

Steve set the mug down on the floor and James lowered himself into a crouch.”My name is Steve,” or ‘Crown’, which he thought was a mistake as nothing about him was regal,”I’m your, what your stories and legends would call, Guardian Angel, and I have always known you, James.”

“Bucky,” James spat, whole body a wound spring,”I remembered that. I was called that. Bucky, not James.” Steve smiled despite himself. No one had called ‘Bucky’ James unless he was in trouble.

“Bu — “

“And if you’re my Guardian Angel, you failed.” Bucky sneered, righting himself to walk deeper into the derelict apartment. 


	5. Chapter 5

Sequestering himself in the bathroom, Bucky walked the small circuit of filthy tiles. His mind had blown apart in the span of a conversation, a dull throb like the remnants of the gunshot wound. 

James Buchanan Barnes. His name. He had a name other than Soldat. Asset.  _ Weapon _ .

_ ”Bucky?” A woman’s voice carries over the din of clinking glasses, music, and laughter.”You going to make me wait?” A blurry figure leans in, a small, slender hand gently gripping his bicep. She smells like perfume, sweat, and gin. _

Bucky sucked in a sharp breath, leaning his head in the cradle of his arms, even if his metal arm dug against his forehead. It was all he could do not to heave, vertigo sweeping through him so intense he’d fear he’d been poisoned if not for the fact he hadn’t eaten or drank anything since before the attack. 

Stowing the weakness away in a little box he pushed himself up and returned to the main room where Steve still sat on the bare mattress.

The so-called ‘Angel’ nursed his tea in morose silence and for that the Soldier — Bucky, his name was Bucky — was thankful. 

“Your wings, show them to me.” If this man was an ‘Angel’ it was a reasonable request.

Blinking up from the half-empty cup, Steve glanced behind him, lips pressed into a thin line.”My wings?” He echoed, sitting the cup on the floor and crossing his legs. His eyes drifted closed, a small furrow of concentration scrunching the pale skin between his dark blond brows. 

Seconds trickled by, Bucky’s eyes trained just behind Steve. Waiting.

“I can’t,” Steve exhaled a harsh breath, eyes blooming to quiet distress.”I’ve never been on this plane before. I didn’t even think I could, and now my wings won’t even come. I’m...I’m tired?” The realization seemed to hit Steve in a tight fist, punching the air from his lungs.

Sitting in the middle of the dingy mattress, naked, and shivering, the man doesn’t look much like an Angel, but there is an ethereal quality to his fragility. A man made of spun glass capable of rendering a body into crimson sludge. 

“I was tired after waking you from hurting the child, but nothing like this.” The sighed comment perked Bucky’s attention.

“ What do you mean, ‘waking me’.” There was only one incident Bucky thought Steve could be referring to because it had been featured in his nightmares since part of the fog had lifted. What would have happened if he hadn’t blinked and seen the little girl standing there in her pajamas as a person with her whole life ahead of her instead of just collateral damage. If she hadn’t blossomed quiet laughter reverberating in his cavernous skull where people were supposed to house memories and thoughts.

Steve hugged his arms around his little legs reminding Bucky that the apartment didn’t have heat and the weather outside was cool. Why an Angel would feel cold, Bucky didn’t know, but he could see the gooseflesh crawling up Steve’s arms.

“I couldn’t watch it again — I couldn’t.” Fresh tears tracked down Steve’s cheeks,”I tried for so long. Divine’s ghost, I  _ tried _ , but I could never make you hear me. Not until then. I don’t know why you heard me then. I’m not supposed to influence you directly, but your soul was in so much  _ agony _ . It  _ cried _ ,” Chest hitching, Steve tipped his head against his knees, shivering through the wave of grief so palpable Bucky had to look away.

He rooted through his bag, pulling out a sweatshirt he’d swiped from a clothesline and tossed it at Steve’s feet. 

Startled, Steve peered at his feet, wiggling them under the black sweatshirt. Hesitantly, he dragged it on with a little difficulty, moving in a tangle of confused limbs. Visible relief colored his cheeks once the shirt was on, swallowing him whole, but at least it would keep Steve from quaking a hole through the floor of their hideout.  _ His _ hideout. 

“I wonder if this means I’m Fallen...if I can’t go home,” Steve mumbled, staring down at his cloth-covered hands for answers.

Smirking, Bucky shrugged.”Join the club,” Returning to his bag, he pulled out two granola bars and tossed that and a bottle of water at Steve. “Don’t know if you eat, but you should find out.” He’d humor Steve for now. Mutant, engineered, Angel, it didn’t make a difference. Steve was a bomb apparently primed to destroy Hydra and Bucky wasn’t going to overlook a potential advantage.

Bucky tore into the bar as he sat his ass on the floor, back firmly rooted against the wall. The place wasn’t ideal, considering it was on the first floor but for a hastily-scoped base it would do for the night, just until he was certain his brain wouldn’t liquidate out of his ears.

Two bites in he realized Steve was just staring at the wrapped package in his hand, looking as perplexed as he had the moment he woke up. “Eat it.”

“I don’t know how,” Steve mumbled, tentatively opening the package and giving the bar a cursory sniff. Surprise wrote itself over his face, tongue snaking out to touch the surface. Another burst of shock, and Steve looked up at him.”Is this the taste, sweet?”

The case that this man was even more clueless than he was, grew,” Yeah. And salty,” He took another bite, slower this time, conscious of Steve watching the mastication with all the seriousness of defusing a bomb.

Steve took a small bite, holding the piece on his tongue before rolling it with exaggerated care to the corner of his mouth to crush between his molars. He kept chewing, brows creasing deeper and deeper. 

“It’s unpleasant now,” Steve mumbled with a mouthful of mush.

A small snort huffed from Bucky’s chest, the faint desire to chortle bubbling briefly.”Swallow,” He prompted, miming with a quirked brow.

Steve mirrored him, grimacing every step of the way. It took him nearly thirty minutes to learn how to eat and drink, and even with a full stomach, the ‘angel’ quivered with pale lips.

Bucky added a blanket and thicker clothing to the list for acquisition.


	6. Chapter 6

Being mortal was nothing at all like Steve imagined. His body always felt cold, his bones too fragile, and its complaints too numerous. Even bundled in the provided clothing and blanket he shivered, conscious of Bucky’s unblinking eyes trained on him whenever his charge wasn’t otherwise occupied. 

He didn’t enjoy eating. Perhaps it's the chalky rectangles filled with sweet and hard or the body that was the manifestation of all his shortcomings. He wasn’t the only one to notice, the night after the attack Bucky looked up at him from polishing a hunting knife and said,”I don’t remember shit, but I remember that angels are supposed to be — “ He groped or the word, “Bigger.”

Steve nursed what felt like his fiftieth cup of tea, trying to chase away the permanent frost. ”I wasn’t the sort of Angel humanity has a name for. I am one of those conscripted after the Grigori failed and brought cataclysm.” Bucky looked at him vacantly, the barest hint of emotion within his eyes to say he was lost, rather than made of stone. 

“The Grigori walked with humanity, long ago, and they fell prey to dark desires. Afterward, the Divine pulled all on earth and forbade us from touching the soil with foot or presence. At least, that is what is said. I was nothing more than another voice in the Host before Lailah’s hand guided me to you and bound me. The closest humanity has gotten to naming us are  _ Eshim _ .” Once, that might have sparked a shameful amount of pride in his chest, but he no longer felt pride in his title’s meaning. He wasn’t sure if it was true, that his kind was made from the souls of the just, but he knew if he was ever unmade, the Divine would have no more use for him.

“And you ‘knew’ me, before it all?” Steve didn’t miss the faint tremble that threaded into Bucky’s voice, his eyes pinned on Steve as if he was trying to stare through him. 

His eyes trailed from the chipped coffee cup to Bucky’s face, shifting slowly to the edge of the bed. Cautiously, he reached a hand towards Bucky’s, heedless of the weight of Bucky’s attention on him. He laid a hand over Bucky’s, squeezing gently.

“Yes, I’m — I’m sorry, Bucky. I’m sorry my wings weren’t strong enough to carry you.”

Others might look at Bucky now like a man that had more things in common with a feral animal than he did the rest of humanity, but Steve could only see the little boy that had whistled through the gap left by his first baby tooth falling until his mother shoved a piece of penny candy into his mouth if only to plug the hole.

For the first time since he’d woken, the silence between them wasn’t a coiling spring. Bucky breathed long and deep, gaze in the middle distance but doing nothing to remove Steve’s hand.

As the gauzy dusk descended into night, Bucky growled, “I’m going to kill them all. Every single one of them.” 

In contempt of the dying light, flames sparked in Bucky’s eyes and Steve’s chest swelled.”Yes,” He scooted a little closer, closing his other hand on Bucky’s arm despite the wound pulling underneath the bandage Bucky applied the night before.

“They deserve to be brought to heel for all they’ve done. Not only to you but to all.” He squeezed, a vicious form of satisfaction radiating through every vein at the mere idea that Hydra might fall. Bucky deserved it. Deserved it and more. 

Bucky’s brows climbed, momentarily wiping away some of the harsh years that lined his handsome face.”Aren’t Angels supposed to be all mercy and — “ He trailed with a small puff, ”You know.” Words didn’t come easy to Bucky, but that was alright. Steve didn’t need them to understand Bucky. 

Smirking, Steve sat back on his heels,” Steal books on humanity’s religions and you’ll see my kind are the swords of the Divine. I’m nothing but a mote in comparison to the Host on High, but even I have the Wrath.”

He wouldn’t fault Bucky for his dubious eyeing of his mortal form as he hadn’t been much without it either. “Is that what you did in the alley? This ‘Wrath’?”

Steve faltered, drawing his injured hand back to cradle it against his chest.”Yes? I didn’t think it was possible, considering my kind are only supposed to influence. But I guess the Grigori found a way to push into the mortal plane, and so did I.” Swallowing, he remembered the all-consuming agony that had come with gripping Bucky’s soul. “I touched your soul and it consumed me. Then I woke here.”

Bucky brushed his other remaining away and with it the faint core of warmth that had settled in Steve’s core. Bucky grasped his injured hand and drew it between them, making quick work of the bandage. The wound was puckered and ugly, dark and raised against the pale pink of the surrounding skin. 

“My soul?” Bucky echoed, so much of the boyish wonder Steve remembered melded with guarded disbelief.

Bucky tended to his wound with something he called a ‘field kit’, pouring stinging liquid, patting it dry, and smearing cooling cream. A pill was pushed past his lips and within the next hour exhaustion took him so deep Steve dropped into a dreamless sleep. 

The next time he woke, it was in the backseat of a stolen car wrapped in two layers of blankets.

  
  
  


* * *

Steve wasn’t getting any better. He was still on the fence on if he truly believed Steve was an ‘Angel’. Hell, he didn’t even know if Steve was  _ real _ . Considering the state of his head and the brief, horrific memories that came to him in the night, he could be making Steve up. A tiny, mouthy mirage.

For someone that was a supposedly silent watcher, Steve had taken to having a voice like a mission. Bucky didn’t care, he could easily tune Steve’s incessant questions and musings like all else. He’d been trained to hear worse and still get his job done. 

“ —  _ cky _ .” He blinked, head swiveling towards Steve where he was huddled in a semi-clean corner of the abandoned store Bucky had scouted for signs of the homeless or a strong police presence. 

“What?”

Steve pulled the blanket down from his face, pale-skinned with dark shadows underneath his too-blue eyes. “Where are we going?” Hearing the ‘we’ always made him balk. There was no purpose in packing Steve around with him. Steve was a liability, too weak to care for himself and apparently a single-use bomb. Even knowing all that, Bucky couldn’t bring himself to leave Steve behind.

A cord tethered them, an invisible line Bucky felt tugging at his core every time he started entertaining notions of either killing Steve or leaving without him. The same sensation that had sometimes skipped notes in the dark drone of his conditioning throughout the years. If he did that, he would be every inch the monster Hydra wanted him to be. 

Bucky didn’t have memories of companions yet if there ever were. Steve told him many so-called memories of his from a bird’s eye view. He learned the woman with red hair had been real, a lover and some kind of agent. He learned of other brief moments in his long past where he’d come close to regaining himself, only for it to be wiped from his head in a surge of electricity. Cooking the memories right out of his goddamn skull. 

It more than explained why sometimes he felt ‘off’. Losing time only to snap to attention with Steve’s patient eyes on him. A violent spasm in whatever group of muscles decided to act up. Abruptly switching to a foreign language in the middle of answering Steve’s slew of questions. He didn’t know if his brain was trying to repair the damage or if it was a side-effect of the damage that had already been done. 

Largely, it didn’t — 

“Bucky?”

His eyes focussed again, pulling himself down from the disjointed thoughts.”Wherever we need to. I don’t remember any locations Hydra would be at, but eventually, we’ll find them. They will be after me, and I’ll notice them before they notice me.”

Steve sat up a little straighter, a familiar grimace on his lips. Movement that required extra use of his back was always accompanied by signs of pain and a forlorn glance at his shoulders.”I could help? I wouldn’t know by map or sign, but by sight perhaps?” A tempting offer, but Bucky didn’t feel like dragging Steve around street by street was wise.

“You’re too sick to be of help,” He replied, though by the way Steve flinched Bucky figured it was one of those things that would make Steve look like a kicked puppy.

“I’m healing, my wings, I can feel them a little more.” Steve continued, chin jutting out. He doubled down, eyes drifting closed. Over the past two weeks Bucky had watched enough to know this was how Steve was ‘calling’ for his wings. Steve’s words, it was too far fetched for him. Like one of those pulps he used to read as a ...as a kid? He used to like science fiction. Little green men and the things of tomorrow. He’d wanted to study space. He’d wanted to know a world outside of his Ma and Pa fighting about money and how they were going to feed another kid. Probably another girl, god he’d wanted a baby brother.

Bucky almost missed the startled gasp as he freefell into another burst of memories. The crushing weight of all his senses being flung back into time abruptly ended with the flutter of feathers. Slowly unfurling from his back, Steve’s wings grew, every few inches writing agony on Steve’s face.

The wings were just as Bucky remembered before they’d faded to ash in his arms. Ragged, sad things that hung limp even when spread. The white feathers were in ruins, splattered grey and thinner than even when Bucky had seen them in the alley. 

He was standing in front of Steve before he thought it through, and he reached for them. Below, Steve sucked in a sharp gasp as Bucky’s flesh hand sunk into the unsightly curtain of his feathers, a hard shiver tearing down Steve’s back. 

“Oh, that’s…” Bucky didn’t pay attention to what Steve muttered below, too busy gently tugging. The majority of the feathers stayed strong, but he still came away with a lone feather cradled in his palm. 

“Why are they like this?” Bucky held the feather out. His thumb brushed the quill and this too faded into ash until only Bucky’s dusty palm remained.

Instead of answering, Steve’s wings sagged to the ground and he curled in a little tighter.

Bucky’s chest was too tight, and the instinct to pace dialed up to nine. There was something here, something that he needed to know.

“Steve,” Like usual, it only took one growled word for Steve to crack. 

“Bucky, it just happens like that.” Sighing, Steve tugged the blankets tighter around his body, the ethereal splays of wings unbothered by the physical. To Bucky’s eye, the wings looked to fade into the thick cloth, but they still shifted and moved with every twitch of Steve’s body. “They used to be what you’re thinking, but like I said, it doesn’t matter.”

The urge to reach out and right the tattered feathers desperately clinging nearly overtook him.”Why?” He insisted.

“Because of Hydra,” The iron-jawed frown returned with a vengeance.”My tether to you, it bleeds into me because I’m supposed to be your guiding influence. I’m supposed to make sure you’re as safe as possible and I  _ failed _ . Hydra made them like this, because Hydra —- because they tried to make it where there was no coming back. They started darkening when they took you.”

Steve was dancing around the obvious and even Bucky and his brain-damage could figure that out. The sour, sinking sensation he’d felt more often than not lately doubled down.”Because of what I’ve done.” He finished the thought, hand twitching towards his chest to that invisible cord. 

Instead of answering, Steve gave that beatific smile that panicked Bucky more than calmed him. He didn’t know much, but he knew he sure as hell didn’t deserve forgiveness. 

“If you’re bound to me, the people upstairs really must not have liked you much.” 

The smile fell and with it went the weight on his chest, even if the pit in his stomach grew and grew. 

The background of Steve’s voice dried up after that. The days felt longer. Hasty meals blander. It didn’t make sense. And all the while Bucky felt himself hemorrhage from a wound he had no idea how to field-patch.


	7. Chapter 7

Memories were things he craved as much as feared. There was little rhyme or reason to how they were triggered. Birds flying overhead blurred into birds scattering from treetops as artillery shells rained down. The scent of spiced meats from a street vendor conjured ghosts of carnival rides and joyous screams. A cold night whispered frigid metal and hissing gas. 

More than once Steve had to reach over and steady the wheel of a stolen car or wake him by cautiously chucking small bits of debris at him until he woke with a shout and a knife in his hand.

Steve didn’t talk as much anymore, but he pressed water into his hand after nightmares and sat up watching him, no matter how heavy Steve’s eyelids drooped.

Sometimes, Bucky was the one to wake Steve when fever burned his brow or he shivered so violently his teeth clattered. Bucky had no clue how to care for broken things, but he stole medicine and tea in hopes of bolstering the tiny bomb strapped to his hip.

Steve helped him move through society with better ease. No one cared much about the predator with an ailing sheep herded under his arm. Bucky tried to avoid towns, but it was necessary. He had to find some signs he was being hunted if he was going to be on the offensive and Steve couldn’t survive on the fringes. 

No matter how much frustration pulled at him, he tugged Steve along, digging his metal fingers into the center of his chest. The cord never loosened, if anything, it pulled tighter. 

Fed up with Steve’s constant shivering, Bucky broke into a home. The occupants were on vacation, long enough where perishables were cleared from the fridge but the cabinets were stilled stocked. He would never admit it, but standing over a heating vent felt the closest thing to  _ good _ since he’d eaten himself sick on plums. That was until he hazarded to bathe. 

It was perfunctory at best, not wanting to stay vulnerable for long, but the five-minute ‘soak’ loosened tight muscles and by the time he stood the water was murky grey. Steve sat in the middle of the his-and-her sinks, legs tucked up, watching in the intent way he did when Steve was learning something new. 

After emptying the tub and scrubbing it down, Bucky pointed.”Get in,” Steve needed to bathe. If they went any longer their smell would prevent them from operating in acceptable parameters. And — he didn’t like it. A memory of cologne painstakingly bought and aftershave ghosted his nose. Smelling nice was possibly something he liked. 

Wordlessly, Steve obeyed, stripping off the baggy clothing until he was standing in the middle of the tile floor that was as pale as he was. The bathtub was almost comically big with Steve in it, but Bucky filled it anyway. He wasn’t the one paying for the water bill, and Steve needed the warmth. 

“Oh,” Steve breathed the familiar note Bucky had come to attribute as ‘a good thing’. Steve’s nose scrunched when he didn’t like something, and a vein would swell on his forehead when angry. Sometimes Steve smiled, but Bucky didn’t know what brought those events to fruition. Mostly, Steve just looked lost.

Bucky redressed as Steve moved his hands around the water, the buzzing under his skin lessening once all his knives returned to their holsters.

“What happens when your wings are fully black?” The question had weighed on Bucky all week. The more memories that returned, the more his mind turned from protocol towards Steve. It was distracting at best, infuriating at worst. How was he supposed to operate when Steve dragged him down?

Silence stretched, and Bucky prepared for a fight. He always won in the end, no matter the scowls Steve directed at him. The ‘Angel’ always folded. So far Bucky had used this to his advantage and so far Steve had fallen in line. 

“We fall,” Steve’s wings shimmered into existence, immediately collapsing into the water and scattering water all over the room.

Bucky’s heart stuttered at the quiet moan pulled from Steve’s chest, a new look that Bucky could only hazard to guess as ‘pleasure’ momentarily smoothing Steve’s face. A liquid heat diffused through his body that had nothing to do with the ambient temperature of the humid bathroom. Making his eyes linger on Steve’s pale lips longer than he needed. His body was in working condition, fed, watered, and adequately rested, but still, a strange storm flared hard and fast just behind his ribcage. 

“Fall?”

“It’s not the same as being mortal. To Fall like that, to blacken, it is giving up everything it is to be made by the Divine. Your tongues call them ‘Demons’. Damned Angels. The Punished.” Steve stilled in the water, hunkering down deeper into the rising steam though it did little to quell the ever-present quiver. “ _ For God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them in chains of darkness to be held for judgment, _ ” A small smirk tugged at Steve’s lips. 

“It’s wrong, but the spirit is there. There is the original Fallen, I suppose that counts as ‘hell’. The chains are failure, guilt, hatred. It’s what perverts us. I don’t know if there will ever be a judgement, the Divine has long been silent, but I know that if my wings blacken the light will never warm them again, blood will be my drink, and I will crave suffering.” Steve stared at the dripping water, and all the while Bucky stared at the water-color grey of Steve’s wings.

That night Bucky forced Steve to eat more than a few mouthfuls of packaged oatmeal and bed down in the master bedroom. Despite the warmth and comfort of sitting on plush carpeting with a solid wall at his back, Bucky didn’t sleep. Instead, he watched the still lump underneath the sheets and hearing specters of church-bells.

* * *

  
  


The next hovel turned up a stash of drugs and other paraphernalia Bucky had no interest in, save two bricks of clipped money shoved at the bottom of the duffle bag. Judging by the clothing and the gun, it was probably someone’s hide-away bag in case of quick getaways. Their loss was his gain.

He pocketed the gun for good measure and passed the wind-breaker to Steve to shrug on over his sweatshirt.

Bucky blamed the money for Steve pressing his face against the glass as they rolled into the next town and gesturing,” Bucky, can we stop? There was a man selling something, it smelled good.” Even if he didn’t want to admit it, Steve talking more felt vaguely ‘good’. A quantifier he wasn’t yet used to enough to accurately apply, but it was a close enough fit. 

“Negative.”

Steve’s expression pulled, “Why not? I’m hungry.”

Bucky inwardly sighed. Steve had enough trouble eating, and for him to admit to hunger was a rarity. Bucky was confident in his own ability to go without food for a number of days despite constant hunger, but Steve didn’t have the health to coast on. Already his ribs pressed against the thin skin of his chest, perhaps something with high calories from the vendor would be more helpful than a hindrance. 

“Fine,” He scowled, pulling into a back lot to abandon the car. He’d have to steal a fresh one after this just to ensure someone hadn’t come and tampered with this one or was laying in wait. 

Once again, he had to wonder if all Guardian Angels were this annoying or if it was just his. 

Steve hit the streets with enthusiasm, peering into shop fronts with wide, curious eyes. So far Bucky had kept Steve largely away from public eye, parking him in a hide out under strict orders not to move, only dragging him along when it was necessary. He supposed he understood why Steve was so excited, though he didn’t share the elation. People were undesirable. Loud.  _ Dangerous _ . People meant Hydra. 

Swallowing the sudden rush of bile in his throat, Bucky stalked after Steve. After a few minutes they backtracked to the vendor selling sweet fried doughs coated in honey and nuts. His stomach rumbled, reminding him he hadn’t been meeting his body’s optimal caloric intake. It was too hard to keep up with as it was and he was still within functional parameters. 

Parked with their backs against a wall, Bucky watched as Steve took his first bite. Blue-green eyes bloomed wide, lips slick with sticky honey. Steve chewed, grin widening second by second. A small chuckle bubbled in Steve’s throat and he excitedly held out a sticky hand to nudge Bucky.

“Try it! It’s — it’s — “ Steve bounced, stuffing another bite into his mouth until his pale cheeks bulged and his words trailed into a quiet moan. 

He watched a little longer, puzzled. 

Eventually, Steve goaded him enough into eating, and the burst of crunchy-sweet obliterated all else. He ate even faster than Steve, much to Steve’s delight, licking the remains of sweet honey off his right hand with a quiet hum of satisfaction. Steve followed suit, sucking slender fingers into his mouth while smiling up at him as if Bucky had done something worthwhile. 

_ Sticky fingers slid against his cheek, quiet giggles pressing against his lips. He tastes like powdered sugar and salt from a dinner of Fair-food. Distantly, he hears a burst of laughter from their hidden shadows behind the dart-booth. Kyle has a slight body like a dame, but his face is taking on the hard lines of masculinity after his sixteenth birthday. Bucky tastes his lips, stealing kisses in the dark. _

Bucky blinked, glancing around himself to find their walking again, Steve chattering about who-knows-what a few feet ahead of him. 

Steve paused to look at a table of useless trinkets peddled by an ancient woman on the sidewalk, and Bucky’s attention turned towards the street. There were more people on this leg of the city, enough that he pulled his baseball cap down further and shrugged deeper into his stolen jacket.

Black hair slicked into a severe style jerked his attention towards the front of a small corner store. The man wore a frown, staring down at his phone and seemingly unaware of the world around him. Nothing about his drab wardrobe or posture should have given him away, but Bucky knew. Knew from the static burst of phantom pain and a flat, bored voice saying ‘Increase to five amps, three hundred thousand volts’ right before his world erupted into agony. The man was older now, black hair threaded with fingers of grey and jowls carved into a permanent scowl.

He watched the man answer the phone and stride towards a parked car, license plate clearly visible. Bucky suppressed a grin and turned back towards Steve in time to see the old woman giving Steve some kind of bauble and patting his cheek affectionately. 

“Look, Buck, she gave it to me, I told her she shouldn’t,” Steve offered the palm-sized glass statuette of a dove towards him, “She sells things because her husband is sick,” His smile dimmed, and cradling the dove in his bandaged hand that never seemed to fully heal.”I think he’ll die soon, I could feel it. The air of death. I think she’ll go after him. They won’t be alone for long.” The smile did something Bucky didn’t understand. Steve’s eyes were sad, but the smile was soft. A smile he’d seen Bucky give a child or a group of deer passing on the road. Warm.

“Is that...good?” Bucky ventured as they turned down a small side street where Bucky can start scoping for a place to lay low for the night. 

Steve puffed a quiet laugh,” Of course! She loves him. She wears it in her eyes and in her voice. I’m sure when they’re together their souls sing.” Steve’s wistful sigh reminded Bucky of the honey and cinnamon still lingering on their lips. 

It’s a conversation Bucky puzzled into the night, leaving Steve in the relative safety of a boarded-up flat that had no overt signs of recent traffic. It smelled of old reefer and mice piss. A ridiculous notion gripped him while he fingered the hilt of his favorite dagger. Steve shouldn’t be surrounded by filth and decay. Steve with a honey smile and wrath in his eyes. His mind drifted back to the vacationer’s home with hot water and sheets that smelled like chemicals but with a floral tinge. Steve looked more at home on the plush bed instead of a hastily made nest in the cleanest spot on the floor. 

He slipped into the dark home, musings drifting away as second by second his mind stilled, focussing on one singular goal.

It was a shame he didn’t get to draw it out. See how much the retired scientist could take. Hear the pitch of  _ his _ screams. Despite that, Bucky smiled as he slid his dagger between the man’s ribs and angled it right at his heart. The old man lived long enough to stare up into his eyes and know that the devil he helped create had finally come to collect his due.


	8. Chapter 8

He’s used to Bucky disappearing for hours at night to skulk around the towns and cities for signs of Hydra so when Bucky left that night, Steve settled. He sighed, resting with his head against the creaking headboard. The bed was hard and worn but a far cry from sleeping on the floor in a sleeping bag. He wasn’t sure what possessed Bucky to rent the cheap motel room for the night, but he was quietly glad for it.

It wasn’t so cold in here, even if it was a drab mustard yellow with nondescript beige bedding. Lifeless. Memories of past occupants hung in every square inch of the tiny room, bursts of energies that made Steve’s head hurt if he focussed on the drifting motes for too long. 

Pushing himself up from his cocoon of blankets he walked into the bathroom, barely big enough for the sink, toilet, and bathtub but it was still luxury as far as he was concerned. He peeled off the new heavy coat Bucky bought him earlier in the day at a thrift shop, pointing out the security camera high up in the corner was a fake without connecting wires. 

Bucky was intent on teaching him things like that. Blind spots in public security, how to move through towns without leaving a trace. Bucky had sent him to the front desk to buy the room for the night, instructing him to be just friendly enough to be bland and boring to the dozy older man behind the desk. The man had barely looked up when Steve laid down cash and accepted the key. 

The hot bath water was every bit as euphoria-inducing as his last bath but that had been too many days ago to count. Bucky never seemed bothered by dirt or the scent of unwashed bodies and Steve knew enough not to bring it up. He remembered Bucky enjoying hot water and cologne, he wondered if Bucky still felt the same. Was he just  _ used _ to having to put up with the filth of travel too much to complain about it?

“Steve,” He startled, dropping the little bar of soap into the water as Bucky suddenly filled the doorframe.

“Christ, Buck,“ He cursed, channeling a few bad habits from Bucky’s teenage years.”You scared — Buck?” Bucky thrust his hands under the tap, scrubbing off semi-fresh blood from his hands with methodical ease. Steve’s stomach sank. 

Satisfied his hands were clean, Bucky stripped off his outer layer. Every piece of clothing Bucky had stolen was black, worn under the combat armor Steve watched Hydra buckle him into time and time again. 

“I found one, Steve,” Bucky announced with a tone that was almost gleeful. It was the happiest Steve had seen Bucky since the first few days into his escape. “Herr Graf,” Steve bristled, remembering a man with slicked black hair and a frown permanently carved into a cold face. 

Nude, Bucky crouched by the bathtub, lips split into a grin that would have been bright if not for the crazed glint dancing in steely blue eyes.”I went through his house after killing him, I found something, Steve. Leads.”

A sharp pain lanced through Steve’s chest and he still forced a small smile to reflect Bucky’s own.”That’s great, does that mean…?”

“Yes,” Bucky practically tittered, getting up long enough to push Steve forward a little in the water and climb in behind him. The bathtub was not at all big enough, but Bucky dragged him back into his lap and Steve didn’t have the heart to protest. It felt too nice to hear Bucky so happy.”I’m going to kill them, every last one of them.” Bucky went on behind him, the cool bite of his metal arm snaking around Steve’s waist.

“You’re a good luck charm, Stevie.” Bucky’s low murmured words against the back of his head melted the last bit of hesitation in him, and Steve relaxed into the hold. It didn’t matter than Bucky still smelled of blood and sweat, or the constant burn of his lungs and hand doubled down the longer he thought of the road ahead. Bucky was happy, and that was all Steve ever wanted for him.

Bucky slept that night on the bed instead of sitting leaned up on the floor against a corner. He still sat against the headboard, putting Steve between the wall and his legs, but it was the closest he’d ever been. Steve smiled to himself, daring to drift closer until his head could press against Bucky’s thigh. Waking the morning after wasn’t the struggle it normally was, and Bucky even allowed them to stop by an early morning vendor for a thin pancake wrapped around eggs and sliced meat.

The days slipped by in something that Steve would hazard to call pleasant. They traveled to three more towns, pausing sometimes when Steve spotted something that looked interesting. A red flower from a nice young woman with a winning smile got added next to Steve’s glass dove, as well as a small book to press it into after it started wilting. They don’t carry a lot with them, but Bucky allowed him that much, and Steve held the small drawstring bag of humanity to his chest, listening to the items sing with the spirit of their prior owners. 

The night Bucky killed a man and his wife responsible for upgrades to the cryo chamber a decade prior, Steve collapsed. He clutched futilely at the edge of the bed, trying to drag himself up only for wave after wave of pain to drag him back down. He coughed, hacking hard, spine-rattling heaves until he felt the acidic rise of something push up his throat.

With one last surge, he stumbled into the bathroom and coughed over the sink, splattering the ancient porcelain in brackish sludge that smelt alarmingly of blood. Shivering, he ran the tap, frantically scrubbing away the sludge.

By the time Bucky returned, Steve sat on the bed with clean teeth and bricks sitting on his chest. Bucky smiled at him, a streak of blood on his forehead not covered by his goggles. 

Steve smiled back.

* * *

“Stay here, don’t move.” Bucky stared down at the huddled form on the park bench, a rabid animal gnawing at his gut. It was getting harder and harder to leave Steve when he hunted for a place to rest overnight. Once he’d secured a place it wasn’t so bad, yet turning his back and stalking away while the fragile angel sat holding his meager bag of belongings was...unsettling. 

He shoved away the little voice in his head that told him Steve deserved better than being dragged along in his bloody wake. Steve who smiled at him and told him stories that shook loose memories that Hydra had tried to fry out of his head. Steve who tasted new food with even more relish and surprise than he did.

Steve who bore pain with grace despite the never healing purple bruises on his back and bleeding hand Bucky redressed morning and night.

“You have the knife?” He reached down to manhandle Steve’s chest, only satisfied when he found the slender sheath tucked against Steve’s skin. 

Steve fussed, batting Bucky’s hands away as if he was nothing more than a fussy aunt rather than a deadly, unhinged assassin. “Yeah, Buck, I’m fine,  _ go _ . It’s getting colder.” Steve shivered for good measure, sitting among their two bags with his legs tucked up against himself.

Grunting, Bucky forced himself away, jogging off into the night. He’d like to rent another room, but it wasn’t wise. Motels were higher risk and none of the ones he’d seen so far looked as lackadaisical as the last few. Ones that they could pay in cash and the clerks hid behind glass or didn’t look up past their phones.

It took longer than he would have liked to find an empty apartment on the first floor of a housing project, an ugly building that looked to be largely abandoned save for a few stragglers that refused to give up their crumbling homes. Police presence was low, and his target was semi-local enough he could hunt her down and be back a few hours before dawn to rest for a few scant hours. Steve didn’t like it when he didn’t sleep for days on end.

His face scrunched, shaking away the brief flare of guilt. What the hell did it matter what Steve didn’t like? Steve had too big of a sway over him, and he’d sworn never to be someone’s dog again.  _ He _ was in control. He answered to no one. 

Ignoring the discomfort in his core he started back towards the park.

Blood tickled his nostrils, hot, fresh, irony thick. His pace quickened, senses doubling down. It was enough blood to drown out the overflowing garbage in a nearby bin or the ever-present stink of people and birds that clung to these kinds of public spaces. Humanity stank in ways he could never describe.

The tether pulled him, no longer caring to be stealthy or hidden as he tore his way towards the park bench.

Abruptly, he stopped, staring at a small figure standing frozen in front of a crumpled man on the sidewalk, a pool of fresh blood staining the pavement below his ill-fitting jacket.

Steve clutched the knife for dear life, both hands locked around it in a white-knuckle grip, shivering harder than Bucky had ever seen him. He stared down at the body, face frozen in a twist of emotions Bucky couldn’t place between triumphant and horrified.

He cautioned closer until he could reach out and grasp the bloodied knife and gently pull it from Steve’s hands.”Did he try and hurt you?” He glared down at the corpse, smirking at the small wound that had been angled just right to bleed him out quickly and efficiently. An accident, but a fortuitous one.

“He...he wanted our things...and to hurt me.” Steve gasped quick breaths, still unable to peel his eyes away from the mugger’s sightless eyes.”He wouldn’t let me go, I just,” He swallowed, wiping non-existent blood off his hands onto his coat.

Bucky wiped the bloodied knife on his jeans and reached into Steve’s jacket to resheath it, satisfied.”Good, you did well.” His proud grin froze the moment their eyes met. 

Bucky stared into crimson eyes cracked with ink, stark against Steve’s milk-pale skin and dark brows. Steve blinked, blue-green looking at him with the same wide-open trust they always did.

“I did?” Steve’s lips upturned into a shaky smile, clinging closer. 

Swallowing, Bucky nodded tightly.”Y...yeah,” He looked back at the corpse, the angle of the wound, and tried to forget the wild canvas of colors on Steve’s face before he’d known Bucky was there. 

“Let’s go,” He retrieved their things, tugging Steve away from the body. Steve didn’t have an identity in this world, there was nothing to link him to the crime. Just another murder in a dark park. The world would keep ticking, and they’d be long gone by morning.

Steve slept tucked against his side after Bucky returned from his mission. He barely slept, dreams of bleeding eyes and slender knives chasing rest into the dawn.


	9. Chapter 9

Steve hopped up onto the railing of an old bridge as Bucky stopped to take a leak. He leaned over the rusted metal, peering down into the rushing water of the stream below fat from recent rain. He didn’t have his coat on, bulky sweater sliding off one shoulder, revealing a swath of peachy skin. 

Bucky zipped his fly, staring at the being that was changing every day. Two weeks ago Steve had gasped and wheezed through the night so severely Bucky had feared he’d turn blue. Steve had started the day with warm hands and lips that almost looked pink.

“Come on,” Bucky urged them back towards the car.

A small scowl twisted Steve’s lips, eyes darkening for a mere blink.”The energy is bad here. I think there are bones down there,” He reported, stepping off the railing and meandering his way back.

That wasn’t the kind of thing he was used to Steve reporting. A quiet sigh about oncoming death, or a smile around some passerby’s gentle energy sure, but never a flippant smirk about a possible murder. 

“There are bones everywhere,” He replied, dropping into the passenger seat.

Steve shrugged, kicked off his shoes and rested his bare feet on the dash. Silence descended, even when they passed a field of voluminous sheep that would usually have Steve begging him to pull over so he could lean over the fence and coax a few over with a handful of clover.

Bucky’s hands tightened on the dash, silently willing away the growing knot of dread.

A few nights later had them wrapped up close in a hunter’s cabin, a few kilometers off from a Hydra agent on vacation in his remote lodge. Steve tucked in close, the cold night descending hard and they didn’t dare risk a fire in the hearth. Normally, Bucky wouldn't let Steve so close while they slept, not when nightmares plagued him and he was prone to lashing out. Cold had a way of overriding good sense as the whispers of cryo-frost prickled the edges of his memory. Steve’s small body crammed against his own in a sleeping bag was a welcome balm.

The chirp of pre-dawn birds pressed into his consciousness, driving away the shadows lingering in his dreams. For once, he hadn’t woken in a blind panic or a pounding heart. His dreams had been mild, troubling, yet not enough to override the lingering exhaustion of always being on the move had wrought. 

He shifted, a sharp gasp hitching his chest as the faint movement made him acutely aware of a pooling warmth below. His metal hand crept down, pressing over the swell of a morning erection straining insistently against his jeans. 

Bucky blinked. His body hadn’t shown any signs of being able to arouse like this since he’d escaped. He’d figured whatever Hydra had done to him had effectively neutered him. It would have been the wisest thing for them to do, though he reasoned that fixed dogs lost the will to fight.

Steve was still stuck to his side, a skinny arm slung over his broad chest, one leg snaked against his own. He palmed a little harder, shivers dancing up his spine. He needed to get up and calm his mind before he set out to murder a man responsible for part of the brain-washing techniques that had made the Winter Soldier fall into line. 

Carefully, he started to extract himself. Steve’s grip around him tightened, bright eyes staring at him as soon as he hazarded a look. A red tongue peeked between Steve’s lips and he realized he wasn’t looking at Steve’s eyes anymore. His cock twitched under his hand, a confusing response to just looking at a part of Steve he’d seen every day for the past three months.

“Bucky?” Steve murmured, body shifting close once more. Steve’s slender thigh brushed against his upper thighs, just below the ache of his testicles. Steve tilted his head as his breath stuttered, watching him with eyes that had probably seen him in a similar state in a past Bucky couldn’t remember. 

He tried once more to move, and Steve held fast.”Don’t go,” Steve’s voice froze him to the floor, quieter but laced with intent. “It’s okay…” That slender leg raised a little higher, rubbing against the swell of him until the tension drained from his shoulders. 

“I want to,” Steve chewed his lower lip, slotting their bodies together until not even a crowbar could have pried them apart.”Let me?... Let me be good for you,” Steve’s hand crept down, sliding over the back of the Weapon without hesitation.

Bucky swallowed, heat pouring into his veins, warming him from the inside out. 

“I want to be good for you,” Steve’s hand brushed his aside and Bucky didn’t resist, a low groan pulled from his throat when Steve’s slender fingers rubbed against the line of his arousal.

“Steve,” He pushed his hips up, unable to deny the raw spike of  _ good _ just from feeling Steve touch him. To his limited memory, sensory touch wasn’t there. He knew in the same way he knew how to bathe or eat; The instincts around sex, the desire, but when he tried to recall why, nothing was there. Steve had told him he was a skirt-chaser on a few occasions, way back when he was a whole person with a family and a future. How Steve had learned about humanity and sex by watching Bucky, but none of that had mattered to him then.

Now? Bucky rumbled a low sigh and let his eyes drift momentarily closed. Only when Steve started snaking his hand underneath the waistband of his jeans did Bucky refocus and look at him. 

Steve watched him with rapt attention, pupils blown and breath leaving him in quiet hitches. He felt the undeniable press of Steve’s arousal against his hip right around the time Steve’s hips twitched to push it against him. “Tell me if it’s not...I want to make you feel good.” He bit at his lower lip, shifting onto his elbow to lean up. 

Steve’s slender fingers brushed against the top of his dick, and Bucky nearly cracked his head on the floor. He dove his hands down, unbuttoning and unzipping his fly to let Steve slide fully inside. 

It was like nothing he could describe. Like the plums, his first hot shower, or the killing of his first Hydra agent as a free man. So good it momentarily fled all good sense from his skull, devolving him into only nerve endings. Steve’s hand was silken soft, warm, and curious. Wrapping around the length of him, exploring, mapping him out with the same wonder he gave everything else.

“It’s hot,” Steve breathed in awe, peering down their bodies to watch his fist slide up Bucky’s dick.”Oh, Divine, you feel so hot, Buck. Like you could burn me up,” His attention only lasted until Bucky began pressing his hand to Steve’s body, running down the slender silhouette. 

“Ooohh, yes.” Steve shivered, trying to press in like he could combine their bodies if he just tried hard enough.”You can touch me,  _ please _ touch me.” He squirmed, arching into the touch. Bucky’s cock twitched hard in Steve’s hand, the idea that Steve could want someone like him touching him like that doing more for him than the mind-numbing pleasure of just Steve’s touch.

His hand traveled down to the petite swell of Steve’s ass, and — 

_ ”Ohgodohgodohgod, like that. Don’t stop, don’t fucking stop.” A mouthy little thing pants underneath him loud enough where Bucky has to reach down and slap a hand over his lips. The last thing they needed was to be overheard by the guy’s neighbors.  _

_ Ricky is a cute slip that worked at the corner store and christ he can take it like a champ. He rocks back against him, fisting his cock like his life depended on, riding him faster and faster towards his peak until they’re both biting their lips to keep from yelling their pleasure to the whole neighborhood. _

Bucky bent, sealing their lips in an abrupt kiss that had Steve’s hand stilling. “Come here, doll.” The nickname plucked out of his memories sent a visible shockwave through Steve’s body, and Steve moaned sweetly against his lips.

He pulled Steve up on top of him, reaching down to jerk Steve’s soft pants down to his thighs. Immediately he could feel Steve’s jutting cock nudge against his own, and he groaned, a barely-there vocalization that even surprised himself. The Soldier was quiet at all times, but apparently Bucky Barnes was not. 

“ _ Bucky _ ,” Steve squeezed at his shoulders, rolling his hips with a low whine. Steve moved against him like he was trying to kill him. Like it...like it hurt?

Bucky reached down, stilling Steve’s hips even if it pulled another whine from him.”Does it hurt?” It felt good to him, so good it was all he could do to keep from rutting up against Steve’s little body. 

Hot breath dusted his lips, and Steve blinked up at him through tear-clumped lashes.”S-so good, Divine’s ghost, does it always…. feel this good?” He panted, quaking with the weight of his pleasure. 

“I don’t know.” But he hoped to find out.

Their lips connected again, and he bucked his hips up against Steve’s, swallowing up the tortured yelp on his tongue. Slick was building against them, aiding the slide of their bodies. Sweat and — something else. He didn’t know the word, only that occasionally it pooled at their groins in little shocks of euphoria that had sparks building behind his eyes. 

Bucky ate Steve’s cries, hushing him like the foggy memories of his past. Steve’s nails dug at his shoulders, his hair, his hips, anything Steve could reach and grip to help drag himself over and over again on Bucky’s broad body. 

Abruptly, Steve spasmed in his grip with a punched-out moan and a hot flood of warmth pulsed over his cock. The wet slide was too much and just right all at once. His arms locked around Steve’s waist and he fucked his hips up against Steve until the building wave sucked his breath away and crashed over him. His body boughed taut as he shot between them, soaking the hem of Steve’s rucked-up shirt in his seed.

By the time he sagged, Steve mewled above him, weakly shifting his hips, unable to make up his mind if he wanted more or if he wanted to jerk away. Steve’s dazed, flushed face hung suspended above him, a dreamy grin curling his puffy, slick lips. Bucky’s cock perked, strong arms dragging Steve’s body agonizingly slow up and down to smear the mess between their groins. 

Sunlight crested the dingy windows, pulling his attention away from the blissed-out whines falling from Steve’s lips. Dawn was well underway, and they needed to be going.

Selfishly, he tucked Steve close to him for another kiss, wanting one more taste of  _ good _ before he had to start the hunt up again, pushing ever on. He pulled them up from the sweat-damp sleeping bag, got them cleaned up, and their clothing righted within a few minutes.

Steve smiled at him as he passed a protein bar and a bottle of water his way, and for once, Bucky offered a tiny grin in return.

* * *

Their routine had become his new normal. It was getting easier to not think about the ‘before’, when he had no flesh to care for and no voice to speak. When he couldn’t touch what he pleased, taste what Bucky offered, or smell all the flavors of humanity. It wasn’t all touched by the Divine, not in a way exalting. The world was bleak, shades of grey only broken up by technicolor bursts. 

The same way he got used to ignoring the sound of rats in the walls of their hideouts, he got used to Bucky coming back during all manners of the night, sometimes bloodied, sometimes sporting a smile and a spring in his step.

With every killing, Bucky got lighter. Steve wished he could say the same for himself.

A rueful smile tugged at his lips as he turned the switch-blade Bucky had given him over in his hands. Somewhere nearby a siren wailed in the night, one of their rare glimpses into city life. Bucky said they would be here for a little while, that he was chasing a trail that could lead them deep.

His thumb hit the trigger and the knife sprang to life, gleaming bright in the pale light of the moon bathing the dingy room in its light. Slowly, he lowered the knife to his other hand until the tip began to press in. The blade was deathly sharp, slicing through the skin with the slightest press. Blood welled in a shallow bubble underneath the tip. Of course, Bucky had given him a knife he’d sharpened himself despite the fact that Bucky hovered over him lately. Hardly able to leave his sight. 

The blood is nothing new on his left hand, but the pink scar tissue that made up his palm was. The wound had only started healing a week and a half prior, and now he had some vague functionality back in it. Perhaps he could even start helping Bucky with his missions soon. He grew stronger and stronger every day, able to stand and mill about while Bucky was off — being Bucky.

He just  _ wanted _ .

_ ”Let me please you,” _

Steve wet his lips, remembering the first night where he’d tasted Bucky’s lips and found a new Divinity to call home. A dark shape blocked the moonlight a few seconds later, and he smiled, the scent of sweat and blood his welcome. 

He tasted Bucky’s lips then too, standing on tiptoes until Bucky relented and scooped him up under the ass with his metal arm. Their tongues slid feverishly and for a little while, he lost himself to the sensation until Bucky was backing them up. Abruptly, gravity was reintroduced to his person when Bucky’s arm went out from under him. Breathlessly, he was deposited onto the old mattress stretched out with their sleeping bags that still smelled of sex from two nights before. Bucky insisted on stopping at a laundromat often these days, but this he’d let linger.

Bucky was on him again, and Steve reared up to meet him, clawing at Bucky’s shirt. A strong hand pushed him back, Bucky’s cool eyes suspended above him.”You know to wait,” He rumbled, and Steve gasped quietly under the chastisement. 

Bucky sat back, pulling weapon after weapon from hidden holsters underneath his clothing. Steve sat poised, waiting for the last knife to hit the floor before he lunged, dragging Bucky’s shirt off him with a low growl.

“Been waiting for me, doll?” Bucky’s voice grew huskier by the moment, growing more and more verbal with him as the weeks ticked by. 

Instead of replying, Steve reached for the hem of his shirt, one of Bucky’s he’d stolen from his bag last week and Bucky had never asked for it back. Once again, Bucky knocked his hands away only for Bucky to snake his own up under the black cloth and divest him of it in one smooth pull.

A smile tugged at his lips when Bucky’s breath hitched, discovering he hadn’t bothered to get dressed past the shirt that hit him mid-thigh. The cold wasn’t bothering him much anymore, and the payoff of watching Bucky rake his eyes against his bare skin was worth the gooseflesh. 

“Look at you,” Bucky breathed, skimming broad hands all over his body like he was some kind of treasure. Gentle hands, no matter how much strength was housed in Bucky’s body. The kiss of cool metal with warm flesh. Steve’s half-hard dick filled rapidly under the attention, little sighs of pleasure huffed into the air as Bucky inspected him like he’d done over and over again since the first night they’d found each other’s flesh.

At first, the weight of his desire had been terrifying. Looking at Bucky and feeling his loins stir from nothing more than studying Bucky’s silhouette. He understood with excruciating clarity how the Grigori had fallen into temptation and burned their divinity. For Bucky, all things were possible. 

“Buck, come on.” He begged, hands reaching to start unbuttoning Bucky’s pants, the warm press of Bucky straining against his zipper. “I want you to warm me up,” He murmured, leaving his face open and wanting.

Bucky hissed a slow breath through his teeth,” On the bed,” He growled, momentarily retreating to take off his heavy boots and jerk his denim to the floor.

Steve scrambled to obey, but not before reaching for the small bottle he had tucked in the folds of the material. Bucky returned to him, pressing him down into the bed with the weight of his body while hot lips trailed fire against his shoulder and neck. Teeth nipped his skin, marking him up with tiny badges of Bucky’s care for him that would show the world who he was to Bucky every time his oversized clothing canted to one side. The first time he’d found out he could wear Bucky on his skin long after their lovemaking, he’d begged for Bucky to bruise him good and deep so he could touch the mottled bruise every time Bucky left him. He hadn’t allowed himself to go without since the latest nestled above his right hip.

Bucky sucked a stinging kiss just below his left nipple, and Steve’s nails bit into Bucky’s shoulders.”So sweet for me,” Bucky licked, pebbling up his chest until he practically thrashed below him. 

He was unable to get away from Bucky’s size and strength and he’d never want to. The old mattress creaked as Bucky pushed him into the bed until all he could do was sit there, take it, and chant Bucky’s name.

When wet fingers found his hole, Steve jolted. He hadn’t even felt Bucky take the lube from his hand or hear it open. His Bucky was as quiet as he was strong, a panther in the night. Hydra had never been able to realize Bucky’s beauty. Tried to  _ pervert _ it. Twist it. 

Steve pushed against Bucky’s shoulders until Bucky got the hint enough to lean up. Their lips met in a bruising crash, and Steve nibbled at the plush lower lip pressed against his own while Bucky breached him. Always with metal fingers, Steve didn’t want it any other way. He thought he tasted copper but didn’t care who it was from. His, Bucky’s, it would all meld in the end. 

He rode Bucky’s fingers, barely allowing for a breath between them. It wasn’t enough. His skin itched, growing ever hotter. 

“What is it doll — You want on top?” Bucky smirked against his lips, and Steve shuddered. In one dizzying hold, Bucky flipped them, tucking an arm around his waist to lock him in place. Instinctively, Steve locked his legs around Bucky’s hips, and the next moment he found himself perched atop Bucky’s hard body, ass inches away from Bucky’s heat. 

Sweat slid down his nape, the chill of the air turned sweltering as he shimmied back the remaining space and reached back to gently grasp Bucky’s cock.

“Don’t tease me, Stevie, missed you all — “ Bucky stroke up and down his thighs, instantly stilling when Steve unceremoniously lowered himself.

It burned, biting up his spine and licking the flames. Steve’s eyes rolled, and for a few blissful seconds, his sole focus was on Bucky’s thick girth impaling him. They were the only two beings in existence for all he cared, melded perfectly in this moment. All of his senses were  _ Bucky _ , twisted up in pain and pleasure.

Dimly aware of the uttered chastisement, Steve pulled himself up with a slow roll of his hips, feeling Bucky’s blunt tip scrape at his insides, trying to pull him inside out. A lube-slick hand touched his chest, steadying him as he dropped back down, punching a rare loud cuss from Bucky’s lips. It was all the encouragement he needed.

“Dammit, baby what’s got into you?” For all of Bucky’s astonishment, he didn’t sound angry.

His head lolled, circling his hips slow and sweet to fill Bucky stir him up inside. What  _ had _ gotten into him? Sex was amazing, he loved sharing his body with Bucky, but something was different. Want clawed at his insides like never before, snarling at the cage of his ribs.

Locking his arms around Bucky’s raised forearm, he drew himself up and started fucking himself down over Bucky’s dick without mercy, thighs burning from the sudden shift in tempo.

Apparently helpless to his whims, Bucky planted his heels against the bed and started meeting his hips thrust for thrust and  _ oh _ it was perfect. Every jarring jab danced sparks behind his eyes, fireworks blooming within. It was brutal,  _ beautiful _ , all raw energy and lust. He’d pushed Bucky past being gentle in ways he didn’t know he’d wanted.

But still, he burned.

He drove harder and harder, pushing his body to the limits, the heady meeting of skin on skin loud within the darkroom. His hand dove for his leaking, swinging cock, clamping down around it without mercy to fist himself.

Warmth clamped over his mouth, Bucky’s flesh hand tight over his lips to stifle the loud cries of pleasure he hadn’t known he was making. The mercurial fire flared bright, rising until he snarled behind Bucky’s palm. His pleasure was a force, crushing the air out of his lungs and yet Bucky wanted to stifle it. Silence the sounds of their energies twining and thrashing to completion. Bucky could bite back his rhapsody, but Steve would not.

Red hot blood welled underneath his teeth as he wrenched his head free of Bucky’s grasp, only to sink his teeth into the meat of Bucky’s hand. Shock wrote itself over Bucky’s face, a look so foriegn on his face that Steve threw his head back and laughed, warmth dripping down his chin and neck.

His back hit the mattress hard enough to momentarily knock the air from his lungs. His chest ached.

Staring down the length of himself, he saw Bucky, half-sat up with his hand still outstretched from where it had connected with his sternum to send him back against the bed. His core clenched, empty and wanting.

“Bucky — “ 

“Show me your wings.”

The whispered demand stilled him, a mournful note dying on his tongue. He licked his lips, hand twitching towards his flagging cock. He didn’t understand why Bucky had stopped. A bite wouldn’t phase Bucky. It would heal by morning. 

“Baby — “

“Steve,  _ show me your goddamn wings _ .”

Desire fled him so fast it sucked the remaining breath from him. As abruptly as the fire had come on, it left him shaking and cold, drawing back to the corner of the mattress. Bucky’s hard eyes bore down on him, wild panic held back by a thread.

He called his wings into existence, eyes downcast as inky black unfurled, blending into the pitch of their hideout. The flesh had started peeling away from sinew, decay without rot. Tattered feathers fell from the stretch, dotting the floor in powdery ash. At the tips, a spattering of grey feathers remained, clinging on despite the encroaching twilight.

The bed dipped, his wings blocking out the kiss of the moon, even still, Bucky found his clothing in the dark. His feet retreated, the sound of Bucky’s staccato breaths diminishing. A panic attack. One that Steve normally would reach out and cradle Bucky through when the dreams grew too vivid, too real. Except this time, the monster in the dark was him.

  
  
  
  



	10. Chapter 10

Morning had come and passed by the time Bucky returned. Steve sat on the old, scratched coffee table, one leg propped up and the other dangling. Bucky’s steps were cautious, something they’d never been before. Something pulled uncomfortably at Steve’s chest that had nothing to do with the purpled bruise against his sternum from Bucky’s palm.

Steve looked up from Bucky’s bare feet, muddied from the recent rain. Bucky had gone outside with only his jeans and jacket, just enough to cover his arm and to keep a low profile. Despite the cold barely touching him, Bucky looked pale. Drawn. 

Steve’s jaw clenched and he pushed himself up, stalking towards Bucky. Iron resolve sat in the aching pit within.

“Take it,” Steve pulled the knife he’d kept at his side, pushing it into Bucky’s hand. It was faintly gratifying to see Bucky didn’t even flinch considering months ago he hadn’t even let them touch without bristling. “You take it, James Buchanan Barnes,” This time Bucky didn’t jerk away from the name.

Steve pushed the knife in Bucky’s flesh hand. The hand wouldn’t tighten around it, face a mask but eyes wide open. Bucky couldn’t hide his eyes that glittered and burned with the ebb and flow of his soul. Even now, Steve could catch glimpses of Bucky’s aura, feel his energy,  _ taste _ his heart.

His hands closed over Bucky’s clenched fist,”You finish it. Make them pay for what they did to you. Every cut. Every day lost to their viciousness.” He hissed, hidden wings tugging mercilessly at his back as more and more flesh split to reveal stark white bone.    
  
“Cut them down to the last and then  _ rest _ .” He pleaded, squeezing until Bucky’s hand was forced to close even if Bucky could easily overpower him. 

For the first time since returning, Bucky stuttered to life, awareness filling the shell of his body.”Your wings,” He murmured, looking past Steve’s shoulders as if he could see into the eternal plane.

“ _ Damn the wings _ ,” Steve snapped, trembling from head to toe.”I have failed you at every turn but I won’t fail you in this.  _ This _ , this is what I can do for you.” Even if his wings rotted away to nothing but bone and black, he would be by Bucky’s side. He’d walked this damned earth in the shadows if he had to if that meant offering Bucky something good. Something tangible. He was growing stronger day by day, filled with a frightening yearning to creep after his ward in the shadows. Partake of the blood and violence. 

He’d never been able to aid Bucky before, perhaps this was the only way.

For Bucky, he’d burn it all away. 

Blood trickled from Bucky’s closed fist and Steve relented his grip. Bucky looked at their hands, the dribbling blood, and his chest filled carefully. A decision hanging in the balance.

“And you’ll still be there, in the end?” He’d never Bucky use such a quiet, broken tone before. 

The cord pulled him closer until the only things separating their bodies were their bloodied hands.”Til the end of days,” Steve smiled, unaware that when their eyes met next Bucky only saw pits of burning red.

  
  
  


* * *

With Steve’s blessing, Bucky threw himself into his mission. It was easier than sitting back and watching the corrosion eat away at the angel always by his side. The free-smiling, fast-talking punk he’d gotten used to gave way to a being that made Bucky’s senses perk with awareness. The same sensation he had when feeling out enemies in the field. An aura of intent.

The intent was never turned on himself, but rather anyone else around them. Be it a gas station attendant that said something about homosexuals under his breath, or the teenage punk that had tried to corner Steve one day when Bucky had stepped away to tail a potential lead.

Both instances ended poorly, one with Steve throwing fists, and the other in blood. Steve had looked almost proud as he wiped the switch-blade off on his shirt and said, “I don’t think anyone can get knives as sharp as you can.” With a look that was almost a smile. Almost Steve, but the radiance wasn’t there.

More nights than not, he dreamed of blood, screams, and pain, but the addition of red eyes and a sinful body undulating above him was new. The dreams all ended the same. With the sweet body bringing him so close to pleasure it hurt before its face split into a smile filled with jagged teeth. It struck, tearing into the tender flesh of his exposed neck.

And yet, despite it, Bucky couldn’t stay away. The cord between them pulled tighter and tighter, never allowing him to be away from Steve’s orbit for long before the itch to be near grew.

Even now, as he sat a few feet away from a cooling body, scrolling through the woman’s computer files, he wanted to return to Steve and let the corrupted angel taste the victory from his lips. He’d found it. A thread to end all threads. One that he could pull and pull until all of Hydra unwound in a glorious trail of blood. They were getting closer. So close to the end.

Bucky hastened back as fast as he dared. Three days was far too long to be gone, but Steve had assured him he would be fine. They’d broken into an empty house that showed signs of little traffic, and he’d taught Steve how to relocate if needed, how to leave a trail for him to find, but the constant pressure against his chest wouldn’t abate. It had taken him days to recall this as ‘worry’. 

He knew something was wrong as soon as he stood in front of the backdoor. Too many footprints in the wet earth from the recent rain, the broken doorknob only confirmed his worst fears. Steve was gone, the small home empty save for the distant scurry of rodents.

Pain flared so viciously in his chest only punching his right fist through the drywall alleviated the urge to scream and scream until he could purge it from his body. He punched, pocking the wall over and over again but the desire to burn the world to cinders never faded.

A faint scrape against the porch paused his fist an inch from the ruined wall, and he bolted. It took him scant seconds to get to the door but all that was there was a cheap cell phone and no sign of life on the sleepy street. The cellphone rang.

“You’ve been bad, dog.” A familiar voice sneered and a cold sweat broke over his forehead. Brock Rumlow. In the fragmented memories Steve had helped him make sense of, he knew the man to be one of the crueler Handlers that had taken his leash over the years. A sadist in every sense of the word. 

“Where is he,” Steve would be proud of how even his voice was, even if he felt like going to his knees and waiting for orders.

On the line, Rumlow laughed, a deep, wicked sound that sent shivers down The Sold —  _ Bucky’s _ spine. “You mean the rat we found? Is it yours?” He snickered,”If you want it back, you’ll have to come to me.” The phone chimed, showing a text message,”And Soldat...you’d better hurry.” In the background, someone — No, not someone,  _ Steve _ screamed.


	11. Chapter 11

Trust Hydra to send him to a broken down mental hospital a town over just to be dramatic. To make a statement. Bucky grit his teeth, staring at the foreboding building with fire in his gut. He’d burn it all to the ground once he got Steve back, with Rumlow in it. 

To his surprise, and fear, no figure emerged from the darkness as he strode down the empty halls littered with trash and graffiti. No team sent in to immediately try and neutralize him. Then again, why should they? They had Bucky’s pressure point right under their thumb. He’d known Steve was the weak link in his armor. The one thing that could jeopardize his freedom, but he’d been too sentimental to let him go.

Even now, the cord tugged viciously at his chest urging him faster towards his goal. It was never calm unless Steve was with him.

It pulled him towards a warped gymnasium, the scent of blood immediate. 

“Soldat, you made quick time.” Rumlow chortled at the center of the room, dark eyes glittering. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’d missed something.” His left hand tightened around Steve’s throat, the other hugging Steve’s small body against his chest like a human shield.

Blood trickled from a gash on Steve’s forehead. He wasn’t sure if it was the blood coloring Steve’s eyes red or the Turning. 

“But we both know better than that, don’t we?  _ Asset _ ,” Steve jerked in his hold, fanged teeth gleaming in the dim light as Rumlow’s grip dug into his windpipe.

Bucky took a step forward and Rumlow grinned, causing him to still. He was just playing into Rumlow’s hand. There were agents flanked along the room, tranquilizer guns held poised in his direction with powerful enough sedative to take him down before he could ever reach Steve. 

“Ah ah, Soldat. Behave, I wouldn’t want my hand to slip. This thing of yours is so very fragile.” Tsking, Rumlow’s hand released to allow Steve to draw two gasped breaths before his hand tightened once again. “Here’s how this will go, Soldat. You agree to come quietly, and we’ll release your little bitch into the wild. Or, you could be stupid and try and rescue him yourself, then we’ll just capture you and kill him. Your decision.”

“I’ll comply,” It left him before the decision even solidified. Even as cold dread turned his insides to frost, and the animal panic that came with knowing he would be punished beyond any pain he’d ever experienced before lay ahead. Hydra would never let him slip again. They would strip away everything down to the bone and leave nothing behind. “Let him go.”

Rumlow smiled, the terror doubling.”Don’t be rude, Soldat. Don’t you want a kiss goodbye? I’m not a monster, after all.” He laughed and shoved Steve away from him, making him trip onto the floor on unsteady feet. 

Bucky was picking him up before Steve could even get to his knees, crushing the smaller body to his own. Words wouldn’t leave him, not even as he slid his hands over Steve to make sure he was whole.

“H-hey, stop that. ‘M okay.” Steve’s voice husked from the abuse, yet despite that, a small hand reached out to press against his cheek, comforting Bucky as if Steve hadn’t been the one abducted in the middle of the night.

“I’m so sorry, doll. I should’ve — “

“Soldat,” Rumlow’s steely interjection tore through them, bringing them back down to earth.

He could try. He could kill Rumlow before the tranqs could hit him, but then they would hit Steve too. If he ran, the same thing. There was no escape that would end with Steve’s safety and they’d run out of time.

“Kiss me,” Steve’s hands bracketed his cheeks, soft, warm,  _ gentle _ . The only gentle touch he’d ever known since Hydra remade him. The only one he’d ever have.

Trembling hands raised to mirror the intimate hold, one flesh, one metal, tenderly cupping Steve’s blood-smeared face. His head dipped, and their lips met, the melding of blood and tears between them. 

The sound of a gunshot gave way to a sudden jolt through his core. Steve gasped against his lips, sharp nails digging into the flesh of Bucky’s cheek and abruptly growing slack. Dimly, Bucky registered blood dribbling from the bullet lodged in his lower chest from the through-and-through. 

Steve crumpled in his arms, blood rapidly soaking the baggy nightshirt, sticking it to his back and chest. 

Rumlow’s laugh jarred him from staring at the bloodied body lying limp in his arms. His lips were moving, a jeering taunt, but Bucky only heard a high ringing staring into sightless blue eyes.

Footsteps advanced on him as he fell to his knees, cradling Steve’s body, away from them. Away from the cruel fate that had dangled happiness in front of them only to wrench it away. 

He groped for one of Steve’s hands. His fingertips brushed the silvery scar tissue of Steve’s right hand, and the taut cord snapped.

  
  


* * *

Bucky blinked, vision overcome with white. A breeze fingered through his hair, carrying with it the scent of daffodils on warm air. Slowly, his vision returned, allowing him to stare into the vast field of daffodils and clover stretching as far as the eye could see. A bee buzzed by his head, the twitter of birds overhead, but none of it focussed his attention like the woman sitting a few yards away. 

She sat on an even stump, pitch dress flowing around milk-pale skin spilling down onto the thick clover at her bare feet. Her hair hung loose around her face as red as blood, matching the barely-there smile on her lips. Her hands and feet were dipped in glittering night. She was beautiful. She was...familiar. 

“Hello, Bucky.” She greeted, wind blowing once more though none of it ruffled her. A spot of darkness in the idyllic field. “It’s been a while.”

Bucky swallowed, collapsing onto his backside and pulling Steve’s body to him. Blood dripped onto the grass, burning it black the moment it touched. “I...I don’t understand.” Was he dead? Had he died with Steve? But Hydra wouldn’t allow him to die. They would bring him back, they had over and over again during their experiments, Rumlow wouldn’t be so careless as to kill him now. 

Her expression softened,”I know you don’t, you don’t need to.” She spoke to him like what he imagined a mother would. Someone that knew so much but unable to put it into words that her child would understand.

Eyes that housed the stars slid down to Steve’s broken form, her smile waning.”What does he mean to you? My poor Crown.”

What does Steve mean to him?

Bucky looked at Steve’s pale face, hair matted with blood, the blue of his sightless eyes even more stunning than the stretch above. Rain touched Steve’s cheeks, and Bucky jerked his eyes up, staring at the cloudless sky. The rain still fell, slow droplets that melded with blood and grime.

Oh. It wasn’t rain. Was it?

Bucky sniffled, bowing his body over Steve’s as a wail tore from his throat. What did he feel for Steve? He felt as if he would never find light in the world again. Not in fruit. Food. Sleep. Or pleasure. In _ freedom _ . It was all meaningless without Steve beside him. His fiery, beautiful Steve.

A gentle hand touched his head, combing through the greasy strands with care.”Bucky,” Her hand slid to cup his cheek forcing his head up with strength beyond her slender arm.“The world can be a dark place, it is up to you to make it bright.”

She lowered, kneeling in front of him. Her face flashed memories of a girl at his side, so beautiful but so deadly. A ghost from his past superimposed onto the face of the Fathomless. There was a cosmos in the figure’s eyes kneeling in front of him, a mother of the stars. 

“You must fight not for revenge, but for the ones you love. There is no justice in sating your bloodlust. You’ve suffered so,” Her thumb gently stroked his cheek,” That’s why I gave him to you. A crown of gold and light to help guide your way. It will be hard, my child, you will hurt, you will struggle, but above all, you will fight. It is up to you to choose what to fight for. Take this gift, James Buchanan Barnes, and set yourself free.”

She leaned in, red lips pressing against his own. Pain exploded against the back of his skull and the world erupted into blinding light once more. 

He woke on his back, sprawled on the dirty gymnasium floor with the scent of charred flesh in his nose a world away from daffodils and a summer breeze. He groaned, blinking against the fireworks spotting his vision. A pressure on his chest shifted, and he froze. 

Above him, Steve mirrored his groan with one of his own, eyelids fluttering. Their eyes met as they lay at the center of a corona of burnt wood and smoldering bodies. Feathers fluttered down around them, black, white, and grey.


	12. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One year later

“ _ Buck _ ,” Steve’s sweet sigh over the sound of rustling leaves from the open window sounded like a song. Stevie always got so tender when Bucky went at him like this. Relentless, patient. It took a while to get the frenzied edge off of Steve, who’d taken to pleasure like a duck to water, but Bucky had the time. They both had the time. 

Bucky licked over Steve’s right nipple, humming low.”So sweet for me, Stevie.” He murmured against Steve’s flushed skin. It was a hot night, but most nights were around here, not that they minded. They’d had more than enough of the cold. 

“Bucky, c...come on.” Steve huffed, reaching down to tug gently at Bucky’s hair. 

“Not rushin’,” Bucky reached up to tweak Steve’s left nipple hard enough to earn a yelp and a swat to his shoulder. Tittering, he closed his lips around Steve’s pebbled bud and  _ sucked. _

Steve all but wailed, pushing his chest up against his mouth, wings beating against the bed underneath him, giving a strength to his little body. Bucky dove his metal fingers into the burst of feathers, digging until he reached the stronger coverts and pulled.

Steve spasmed underneath him, petite cock straining angrily against his lower stomach.”O-oh Divine, Bucky  _ please _ .” Maybe it was cruel of him to mess with Steve’s wings before he’d even opened him up, but Bucky couldn’t keep his hands off of them these days. They were a sight to behold, the scraggly sprays of stunted feathers giving way to long, elegant sweeps. They were still a gradient spanning ivory to ink, but they were more beautiful for it. They reminded him of those nature documentaries Steve watched, where a young bird was between a fledgling and an adult, soon ready to leave the nest. 

Except, Bucky didn’t have to worry about Steve ever leaving him for long. 

The cord tethering their souls together pulsed in quiet contentment as he fell into Steve’s body, tasting every square inch as if this was the first time. 

By the time he settled between Steve’s splayed legs, a pool of precome had gathered in Steve’s navel. Huffing a fond breath, Bucky dipped his tongue inside, scoping up the shining liquid on his tongue conscious of Steve’s lust-blown eyes watching every moment. 

A bottle of lube nearly hit him in the head, and he looked up to see Steve giving him a peevish glare.”I’m going to do it myself if you don’t h-hurry the hell up.” He pouted, hitching up his legs against Bucky’s shoulders as if to prove a point.

Rolling his eyes, Bucky obeyed. He knew better than to argue or else Steve would make good on the threat.”Bossy.” And he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

The moment one slicked up digit slid into Steve’s hole, Bucky sank his lips down over Steve’s weeping cock. Steve went pliant underneath him, only the little twitches and spasms of his wings letting him know Steve was busy riding out his pleasure to do anything else.

“You’re going to — Bucky! I’m going to…” Steve trailed off into another whine, starting to fuck his hips up into Bucky’s mouth with growing abandon. 

But Bucky didn’t stop. He knew how much Steve could take and they hadn’t even started the night yet. It was their anniversary of sorts. A year to the date Steve came back to him. A year to the date they’d walked away.

His second finger slid home, and Steve came apart, spilling onto his mouth with frantic pulses. Bucky continued to suckle at him, getting every last drop until Steve gently pushed him away. He was all too happy to turn his head against Steve’s thigh, breathing in his skin as he worked Steve open, careful not to brush Steve’s prostate after he’d just came. 

Steve was content to be patient now, hitching his legs wider to let Bucky lazily work him open. His own arousal throbbed steadily between his legs, but if there was one good thing about being trained to push away the concerns of his body, it was this.

By the time he was settled between Steve’s legs, gently guiding himself into Steve’s heat, Steve was flushed and full again. Beautiful laying there in a splay of feathers and sweat. 

Their moans intertwined as he pushed in, sinking himself into Steve’s core and holding himself there.

“Come on Buck, give it to me,” Steve whispered, sinful words on angelic lips.

Blunt nails scraped down his abdomen, urging him for more, faster, but Bucky didn’t give in. He rolled his hips languidly, taking deep, slow strokes that had him nearly popping out, letting his ridge catch against Steve’s rim.

Gradually, even his patience wore thin, and he started sinking into Steve with purpose. The little body could take so much these days, strong in ways the fragile creature Bucky had plucked in the alley never was. Strong in ways that kept  _ him _ strong.

“That’s it, beautiful, you look so good for me,” He could never keep his mouth shut anymore, not when Steve moaned like he was dying on the end of his cock and loving every minute of it. 

Steve reached down to grasp his metal hand, tangling their fingers together until they could be metal to scarred palm. 

As the mercurial heat swept through him, pooling low, Bucky groped for Steve’s chest, pressing delicately against the mass of scar tissue above Steve’s heart from the healed exit wound. Whatever divinity that had brought them back hadn’t spared them their scars, and they wore them proudly. Steve’s through his heart, and Bucky’s on his abdomen. Proof that they’d survived the worst and only had the best to look forward to now.

Bucky bent to capture Steve’s lips, snapping his hips in such tight thrusts that only their connected hands and Steve’s wings kept them in place.

Pain lanced through his lips, blood blooming between the kiss. He tore backward, frigid cold replacing chasing away the comfortable warmth. Below him, Steve laughed, eyes glazed red with blood-smeared lips, a jagged wound through his chest so wide it let Bucky see straight through to the white bedsheets.

* * *

Beside him, Bucky woke with a cry. 

Steve blinked from his exhausted sleep, pleasantly sore and still feeling the sun on his skin from a long day outside. “Buck?” He reached out, careful not to touch, not just yet. 

Watching Bucky come back to himself was like watching the tumblers of a lock be triggered. One step at a time, Bucky’s mind caught up with the surroundings. Their modest bedroom of blues and light greys, airy and carefree. The scent of lovemaking on their skin and the hint smokiness leftover from cooking dinner on the gas stove. 

Steve shifted his leg just slightly underneath the blanket, snapping Bucky’s awareness to the bed with the soft rustle. 

“...Steve?”

Steve touched Bucky, and the last mechanism clicked into place, opening the lock. Bucky slumped back against the headboard, tension giving way to small tremors. “F-fuck,” Bucky swallowed, pushing his sweat-damp hair back from his face.

“Bad one?”

“Bad one.”

Frowning, Steve sat up, ignoring the twinge in his hips from where Bucky had bent him in half. It wasn’t like he was complaining, not when he got to parade around with the shallow bruises, his little gold medals. 

“Come on, bed isn’t for bad things.” Steve made a resolute rule. No going to bed angry and no staying in bed after bad dreams. Bed was their sanctuary where it was just themselves and everything  _ good _ they’d managed to cultivate after a year’s struggle. 

He had to drag Bucky into the kitchen by the wrist, but Bucky went obediently, too rattled to argue with Steve’s mother-henning. They padded barefoot down the small hall, bypassing the bubble of Steve’s aquarium where he’d bought a number of vibrant, beautiful lives he watched for hours on end. 

A flash of white darted between their legs, and Bucky grunted a small,” Alpine,” in admonishment. As if the cat has ever listened, but that’s why Bucky liked him so much. Bucky had turned up four months ago after a mission cradling a grimy snowball of fluff in his arms, distraught that he had no idea how to care for a kitten. As if Steve had known either. 

Miracles in their lives blessed them with a small cluster of forming friendships that withstood calling one of them in the middle of the night about feline healthcare. 

Sam, the kindly retired veteran who had made contact with them first after the destruction of a large portion of Hydra had led a group called the Avengers to their door. Sam’s code name was Captain America, but that sounded silly to Steve. Sam was much better. 

The rest of the Avengers were an acquired taste, but Steve thought he could be fond of them after a while. They were earnest enough at wanting to help, about helping Bucky recover bits of himself, but time would tell. This time around, Steve wouldn’t be passive in protecting Bucky. Never again.

Alpine yowled, pawing at a cabinet.”Yeah yeah, you’re dyin’. Skin and bones.” Bucky smirked, poking Alpine gently in his chubby side before retrieving a scoop of food from the cabinet and plopping it into his bowl. They spoiled Alpine, but they figured he had a rough start, and this wasn’t a home of denying oneself. They could all do with a little spoiling. 

Gentle hands combed through his wings the moment he had the kettle on the stove, and he huffed a quiet chuckle.”Buck — “

“I dreamed that dream again.” The admission sucked a breath from his lungs, the phantom tang of blood on Steve’s lips. He barely remembered the incident that Bucky dreams of over and over again, the night that had tipped him so close to falling. When he’d hurt Bucky beyond just a bitten hand.

Divine’s grace, they’d lost their way there for a while.

Slowly, he turned in Bucky’s hold, shivering as a pleasant tingle itched along his back the more Bucky’s hands explored, never getting enough. Steve accepted the gradient shades, though often Bucky’s fingers would linger in the downy appendages as if he was trying to catalog how many black feathers there were as opposed to grey or white.

“I’m here...we’re here.” Steve whispered, standing on tip-toes to mouth against Bucky’s jaw.”And that’s all it is now. A dream.” His hands smoothed over the scarred plane of Bucky’s torso, kneading his touch until Bucky relaxed bit by bit.

Behind them, the kettle whistled and they broke away. Cocoa was one of those things they’d found was good for a number of emotions. Contentment, Sadness, Fear, it had a calming familiarity to it despite Bucky only having had it a handful of times in his life.

A marshmallow and a cinnamon stick for him, and an extra scoop of chocolate powder for Bucky. 

They slotted onto the couch easily, Steve tucked under Bucky’s metal arm while Alpine took roost on his lap, kneading biscuits into Bucky’s thighs. 

Cuddling and cocoa weren’t perfect cures for what haunted them, but it certainly helped.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> For more information, requests, or updates, go to: [My Tumblr](http://neonbat666.tumblr.com/) and search #Neon-writes or #Neon Writes  
> [My Pillowfort](https://www.pillowfort.io/Neonbat666)  
> Discord: @Neonbat  
> Twitter: My Twitter (I post to twitter more often these days)


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